orca/skill-stubs/_shared/cli-resolution.md

Resolve the CLI for this session

Choose the executable once and reuse it for every later command:

• If the ORCA_CLI_COMMAND environment variable is set, use its value. Orca exports this for managed WSL sessions.
• Otherwise, in a dev checkout whose session exposes ORCA_DEV_REPO_ROOT, use orca-dev.
• Otherwise, on Linux outside an Orca-managed terminal, use orca-ide. Never run bare orca there — outside Orca's terminals it normally resolves to the GNOME Orca screen reader (/usr/bin/orca) and starts speech on the user's machine.
• Otherwise, use orca.

Below, ORCA is a placeholder for the executable you resolved. Substitute it before running anything; do not create a shell variable or run ORCA literally. This works the same way in POSIX shells, PowerShell, and cmd.exe.

If the selected executable cannot run, report its exact error and stop. Do not fall through to another executable, which could silently target a different Orca build.

Prefer --json. Use the selected executable's --help for commands or flags the guide does not cover. A runtime_unavailable error is usually transient while Orca is busy or restarting: wait a few seconds and retry the command. Before retrying a command that changes something, check whether it already took effect, and reuse any request ID the error names. ORCA open can bring Orca's window to the front over the user's work, so never run it to retry a failed command. Run it only when the user asks, or when Orca is really not running: ORCA status --json reports result.app.running: false, or every command, ORCA status included, still cannot connect after about 30 seconds of retries. If a command fails with runtime_access_denied, your sandbox blocked the connection: re-run it with escalated permissions, and do not run ORCA open or restart Orca. If skills get is unknown, explain that updating Orca restores the guide; use --help for read-only discovery and do not guess unsupported commands.