crewrota commands

crew, crw and crewrota are the same command. This page lists every command with one line on what it does; each command links to its reference, which has the flags, defaults, real output, exit codes and what needs a terminal. crew --help prints the same list in your terminal.

Start Claude as a member

Command	What it does
crew	The menu: pick a member, its ship, a model and an effort on one screen, then start Claude Code as that member (needs a terminal)
crew run [<member>] [-- <claude args>]	Start Claude as <member>, else $CREW_MEMBER, else the current member; arguments after -- go to Claude
crew <member> [-- <claude args>]	The same as crew run <member>

Members

Command	What it does
crew add <member> [--ship <s>] [--email <e>] [--sso]	Create a member and log it in with Claude Code’s own login (needs a terminal)
crew use <member>	Make <member> the current one; offers to create it if it does not exist
crew use -	Go back to the previous member
crew list, crew ls	Members with * on the current one, ship, last usage reading, email and organisation
crew whoami	The current member: folder, ship, email, organisation, logged in or not
crew current	The current member’s name only; exit code 1 when there is none
crew login <member> [--email <e>] [--sso]	Log a member in again; its folder stays
crew logout <member>	Log a member out; its folder stays
crew rename <old> <new>	Rename a member; its shortcuts follow
crew drop <member> [--force] [--yes]	Move a member’s folder to removed/; crew remove is the same

Usage

Command	What it does
crew quota	Every member’s 5-hour and week use as bars, read fresh with quota-axi first unless crew config refresh off
crew quota --format menubar	The same as SwiftBar and xbar text, from each member’s last reading; never checks usage
crew warmup [<member>...]	Send each member (or the ones named) one short Haiku message, then show the bars; the only command that sends a message
crew widget	Open the quota widget, a small always-on-top window (needs Python 3 with Tk)
crew widget close	Close it
crew widget startup on|off	Open the widget at login, or stop that (Windows)
crew statusline	The status line crewrota gives a member that has none: saves the session’s usage to quota.json and prints one line

Ships

Command	What it does
crew ship create <ship>	Make an empty ship: five shared folders and an mcp.json
crew ship list	Ships and their members
crew ship join <member> <ship>	Share <member>’s history through <ship>; what it had is copied in
crew ship leave <member>	Make <member> isolated again; the ship keeps its files
crew ship rename <old> <new>	Rename a ship; its members follow
crew ship delete <ship> [--force] [--yes]	Move a ship’s folder to removed/
crew ship import <ship> --from <folder>	Copy history and session folders from another folder into the ship; run it again to add what is new
crew ship mcp list <ship>	The ship’s MCP servers, without their keys
crew ship mcp add <ship> <name> --url <url> [--transport <t>] [--header "Name: value"]...	Add a remote MCP server; --transport sets its type (http by default)
crew ship mcp add <ship> <name> [--env KEY=value]... -- <command> [args]	Add a local (stdio) MCP server
crew ship mcp add <ship> <name> --from <.claude.json>	Copy one server’s definition from another config file
crew ship mcp remove <ship> <name>	Remove one

At every launch a member’s own MCP server list (in its .claude.json) is replaced by its ship’s list, or by the one in ~/.claude.json when it is on no ship. A server added inside a member with claude mcp add --scope user is gone at that member’s next launch; add it to the ship instead.

VS Code shortcuts

Command	What it does
crew shortcut add <name> --member <m> [--folder <path>] [--hotkey <keys>]	A workspace file that opens the folder in VS Code and runs crew <m> there; on Windows also a Start Menu entry with an optional hotkey
crew shortcut list	The shortcuts with their member, folder and hotkey
crew shortcut set <name> [--member <m>] [--folder <path>] [--hotkey <keys>|--no-hotkey]	Change only the given parts of a shortcut
crew shortcut remove <name>	Delete a shortcut’s workspace file and Start Menu entry
crew shortcut open <name>	Open a shortcut in VS Code

Backups

Command	What it does
crew backup [--to <folder>] [--password] [--skip <folder>]... [--no-context] [--dry-run]	One zip of every ship, the member list, the settings, your project .claude folders and your main skills; never a login
crew restore <zip> [--map <old>=<new>]... [--password] [--clone]	Bring a backup back: ships merged, missing members made again, .claude folders and skills added, repos cloned with --clone

Settings

Command	What it does
crew config permissions on|off	Start sessions with --dangerously-skip-permissions, or not
crew config refresh on|off	Read every member’s usage with quota-axi as the menu and crew quota open; no message is sent (on by default)
crew config lavish on|off	The plugin’s Lavish rule at every session start (on by default)
crew config show	The remembered settings

Setup and checks

Command	What it does
crew setup [--yes] [--with-hooks]	Install the default tools from upstream: one list, one yes; anything installed is skipped
crew init	Write the project’s root .claude/ folder into the current folder; never overwrites a file
crew doctor [--logins]	Check Node, Claude Code, the folders, every link and each default tool
crew --help, crew -h, crew help	The command list
crew --version, crew -v	The version number alone

Names

Member, ship and shortcut names use lowercase letters, digits and hyphens, start with a letter, and are at most 32 characters.

Arguments for Claude

Anything after -- goes to Claude Code, after crewrota’s own flags. A Claude flag before -- fails: crew main --resume abc prints crewrota: Unknown option: --resume, while crew main -- --resume abc works. See The -- rule.

Environment variables

CREWROTA_HOME moves the crew home, CREW_MEMBER picks the member for crew run, and CREWROTA_BACKUP_PASSWORD gives --password its value without a terminal. CREWROTA_CLAUDE, CREWROTA_QUOTA_AXI, CREWROTA_TAR, CREWROTA_CODE, CREWROTA_PYTHON, NO_COLOR and CI are in Environment variables.

Where things live

What	Windows	macOS and Linux
Members	%USERPROFILE%\.crewrota\members\<member>	~/.crewrota/members/<member>
Ships	%USERPROFILE%\.crewrota\ships\<ship>: projects, todos, file-history, session-env, shell-snapshots and mcp.json	~/.crewrota/ships/<ship>, the same five folders and mcp.json
Shortcuts	%USERPROFILE%\.crewrota\shortcuts	~/.crewrota/shortcuts
Dropped members and deleted ships	%USERPROFILE%\.crewrota\removed	~/.crewrota/removed
Settings	%APPDATA%\crewrota\config.json	~/.config/crewrota/config.json (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/crewrota)

Each member folder also holds its own quota.json, the last usage reading. The full tree, with the widget’s files and the folders kept aside when a member joins a ship, is in Files and folders. Set CREWROTA_HOME to keep members and ships somewhere else. crewrota never deletes a member or a ship: crew drop and crew ship delete move the folder to removed/, and you delete it yourself when you are sure.

More

• Exit codes and terminal needs
• The default tools
• The Claude Code plugin
• Move to a new machine
• Your main setup in every member
• Questions people ask