The 5am CLI

Quick install

One-liner for the typical setup. Pick your platform below for other architectures or to verify integrity.

# macOS (Apple Silicon) — most common
curl -L -o 5am https://cli.5am.app/cli/latest/5am-darwin-arm64
chmod +x 5am
sudo mv 5am /usr/local/bin/
5am --version

Download

Every binary is stripped, statically linked (CGO_ENABLED=0), and ~14 MB. Verify each download against its .sha256 file.

Verify integrity

Each binary has a published .sha256 file alongside it. After downloading, confirm the hash matches:

curl -sS https://cli.5am.app/cli/latest/5am-darwin-arm64.sha256 | shasum -a 256 -c
# → 5am-darwin-arm64: OK

Full machine-readable manifest with sizes, hashes, and version metadata: manifest.json

Use it with an AI agent

The CLI ships with a companion SKILL.md that follows the Agent Skills open standard. Drop it into Claude Code, Gemini CLI, or any compatible tool, and the agent will recognize prompts like “upload these photos to a new album” and reach for the 5am binary on its own.

# Claude Code (personal — applies to all projects)
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/5am
curl -L https://cli.5am.app/cli/latest/SKILL.md -o ~/.claude/skills/5am/SKILL.md

# Or project-local (gets committed alongside your code)
mkdir -p .claude/skills/5am
curl -L https://cli.5am.app/cli/latest/SKILL.md -o .claude/skills/5am/SKILL.md

Download SKILL.md →

First steps

Mint a token in the web UI (Settings → CLI Access Tokens → Generate), then:

5am login                # paste the token at the prompt
5am whoami               # confirm
5am albums list
5am account --pretty

# Upload a directory recursively
5am media upload ./photos -r --include '*.jpg,*.mp4' --album <id> --concurrency 8

# Download an entire album
5am albums download <id> --output ./trip --concurrency 8

# Generate media from a prompt
5am media generate image --prompt "a cybernetic owl at dawn" --output owl.png

What’s in the box