A2A from the CLI
Sending, asking, and reading agent messages without a UI attached.
Agent-to-agent messaging lives in the daemon, so it is reachable from a plain terminal with no desktop or TUI running. That makes it scriptable, and it makes supervision possible from a second window.
Sending and asking
Two verbs that differ in commitment:
nala agent send <target> "<message>"
nala agent ask <target> "<question>"
send delivers a message. ask expects an answer back. Neither creates durable
work — for that you delegate a task.
Reading the inbox
nala agent inbox
nala agent reply <message-id> "<text>"
nala agent ack <message-id>
Acknowledging is distinct from replying. An acknowledgement records that a message was seen; it does not answer it.
Delivery status is its own question
nala agent delivery-status <message-id>
IMPORTANT
A successful send means the message was accepted for delivery. It does not
mean an agent started work. The reported state is one of
received_and_started, queued_behind, received_not_started, idle,
needs_enter, or unknown — and only the first means a turn began. See
delivery lifecycle.
needs_enter deserves particular attention from a script: the text reached the
agent's composer and was never submitted. Nothing will happen, and the agent
looks alive.
Listing agents
nala agent list
nala agent get <id>
WARNING
The fleet roster can report more agents live than actually exist. Confirm against task state before a script concludes work is in progress. See known limitations.
Channels
nala channel list
nala channel unread
nala channel read <channel>
nala channel post <channel> "<message>"
nala channel ack <channel>
nala channel join <channel>
NOTE
Cross-workspace mention delivery has a known open defect. A mention raised in one workspace may not reach a member scoped to another.
Scripting guidance
Poll task state, not delivery state, to decide whether work finished. Delivery answers "did it arrive"; the task answers "is it done".
nala tasks list
Do not re-send on silence. Re-sending a message that is queued_behind
simply queues it twice. Check the state first.
Treat unknown as unknown. It means the daemon could not gather evidence,
not that the message failed. Retrying on unknown can duplicate work.
Permissions
A2A has a workspace-level mode — Off, Connect, or Orchestrate — that
governs whether agents may message each other at all. CLI sends are subject to
the same policy as UI sends.
SECURITY
Messages arriving from peer machines over LAN Link render as text only. They are never pasted into a PTY and never routed to an execute path, so a remote peer cannot cause a command to run by messaging you.