CLI Overview

Name: CalibrateDS
Author: Deep Adalja

The dna CLI provides ten commands. Three are the main workflow (start, check, hook install); the rest are supporting instruments.

Command reference

Command	What it does
`dna start`	Extract design identity from the codebase → `.dna/identity.yaml`
`dna check`	Run conformance: lint · cn-merge guard · rendered · manifests
`dna resolve`	Reverse-lookup a raw value → identity token, before you write the literal
`dna allow`	Adopt a deliberate exception into the identity, with provenance and a required reason
`dna inventory`	List the component library parsed from code
`dna similar`	Detect rebuilds of existing components and clones of net-new shapes (advisory)
`dna shapes`	Derive a component vocabulary from committed Figma frame dumps
`dna gen-manifest`	Generate structural screen manifests from design frames
`dna figma diff`	Advisory structural change detector: committed frame dump vs a fresh one
`dna hook install`	Install a pre-commit hook that runs `dna check`
`dna mcp`	Start the MCP server (see MCP Overview)

Flag	Effect
`--cwd=<path>`	Project root to operate on (defaults to `process.cwd()`)
`--config=<path>`	Path to `ds-lint.config.json`
`--json`	Machine-readable JSON output (supported by `inventory`, `similar`)

The exit convention depends on whether a command gates or advises:

Command class	Exit behavior
Gating — `dna check`	`0` = clean or nothing-to-check · `1` = violations found
Advisory — `dna similar`, `dna figma diff`	Always `0` when the command ran — findings report but never gate. Non-zero means a hard error only (e.g. a malformed frame dump), i.e. "couldn't compute a trustworthy answer", never "something was found."

Warnings never cause a non-zero exit — they are advisory.

DNA reads ds-lint.config.json at the project root. A minimal config:

{
  "includePaths": ["src"],
  "inventory": {
    "dirs": ["src/components"]
  },
  "similar": {
    "threshold": 0.8,
    "enabled": true
  }
}

dna start writes this file automatically if none exists.