The bellman command

bellman is a command you run in a terminal. It is not one of the tools your agent calls. It updates the npm package, opens the feature-request form on GitHub, and prints the installed version.

The npm package, @bellman-sh/mcp-server, puts bellman on your PATH, and the installer at https://bellman.sh/install.sh installs that package. The Claude Code plugin does not, so a machine with only the plugin has no bellman command. To take the plugin's next release, run claude plugin update bellman@bellman.

Usage

Usage: bellman <command>

  feature-request [words...]  open the feature-request form on GitHub; the words become its title
  update [--check]            install the latest release from npm; --check only reports
  version                     print the installed version (also --version, -v)
  help                        print this text (also --help, -h)

bellman with no command prints this, and so does bellman help. A command it does not know prints bellman: unknown command "<name>" and then this text, both to stderr, and exits 1.

bellman update

Run bellman update to move to the latest release. It asks npm for the latest version of @bellman-sh/mcp-server with npm view, so your own registry, proxy and auth settings apply. If you already have that version, it says so and stops:

bellman 0.3.3 is up to date (latest on npm: 0.3.3).

A version newer than npm's latest, such as a clone ahead of the registry, counts as up to date. update never downgrades.

When npm has something newer, update prints both versions and then does what fits how the package was installed:

Installed as	What bellman update does
A global npm install, which is what install.sh does	Runs npm install -g @bellman-sh/mcp-server@latest with npm's own output on your terminal.
A clone: a .git or .jj entry beside the package's package.json	Prints git pull && npm install && npm run build for you to run in the clone, and runs nothing.
A dependency of a project	Prints npm install @bellman-sh/mcp-server@latest for you to run in that project, and runs nothing.

A clone is checked first. npm link and npm install -g <folder> both put a clone under npm's global root, and a clone is updated with git, not npm.

After a global update it prints Updated bellman from 0.3.2 to 0.3.3. and a reminder: Claude Code sessions that are already open keep the old bridge until you restart them.

Checking first

bellman update --check only reports. On a global install it prints the command instead of running it:

bellman 0.3.2 is installed; the latest on npm is 0.3.3.
To update, run: npm install -g @bellman-sh/mcp-server@latest

On a clone or a project dependency update already runs nothing, so --check changes nothing there.

What it refuses

update takes --check and nothing else. Any other argument is refused, not skipped, because bellman update --chek is a typo for the safe option and read as a plain update it would install. The refusal is bellman: update does not take --chek, followed by the usage, on stderr, and the exit code is 1.

It also exits 1 when it cannot ask npm for the latest version, because npm is missing or you are offline. If the install itself fails, it exits with npm's own status.

bellman feature-request

Run bellman feature-request to open GitHub's feature-request form for Bellman. Words after it become the form's title:

bellman feature-request let me rename a room

It prints the URL first, then tries to open your browser: open on macOS, start on Windows and xdg-open elsewhere. On a machine with no browser, such as an SSH session or a container, the printed line is the way in, and failing to open a browser is not an error. The command exits 0 either way.

https://github.com/bellman-sh/bellman/issues/new?template=feature_request.yml&title=let%20me%20rename%20a%20room

With no words it prints and opens the blank form. The words are encoded as one title, so an & in them stays part of the title and does not start a parameter of its own.

bellman version and bellman help

bellman version prints the installed version and nothing else. --version and -v do the same.

bellman help prints the usage above. --help and -h do the same.