The recommended filename pattern is *.archsmith.json, which allows editors and integrations to recognize ArchSmith documents reliably. The CLI accepts any JSON file path.

archsmith author
archsmith validate <input.archsmith.json> [--json]
archsmith render <input.archsmith.json> -o <out.svg> [--no-embed-fonts] [--pretty]
archsmith registries list
archsmith registries show <sub-layers|colors|icons> [--family standard|accessible]
archsmith schema show

author launches a guided, no-hand-written-JSON wizard — creates a valid initial diagram one plain-language question at a time, offering only governed colors/sub-layers, then validates, renders, and saves the .archsmith.json and .svg next to each other. Editing an existing diagram isn't supported yet. Needs a real terminal — a piped/non-interactive invocation fails with one clear line rather than hanging.
render validates the IR first and fails the same way validate would (exit 1) if it's invalid; a rendering-time error exits 2.
--no-embed-fonts skips embedding the bundled font, producing a smaller file.
--pretty indents the output SVG's element lines for readability (default is one element per line, unindented).
registries show colors --family standard prints just that color family instead of the whole registry. Use --family accessible for the governed color/contrast-safe alternative.
schema show prints the raw diagram-schema.json contents — the structural contract an IR document must satisfy, as distinct from the governed vocabulary registries exposes.