Commands reference

The full grammar for ZAR’s comment commands. For a friendlier walkthrough, see Commands.

Invocation

A command is a comment that begins with one of these tokens (case-insensitive), followed by the command text:

@docagent <command>
/docagent <command>
@zar <command>
/zar <command>

All four prefixes are equivalent.

Permission

The author must have write access. OWNER, MEMBER, and COLLABORATOR are accepted automatically; others are checked for write, maintain, or admin permission via GitHub. Insufficient permission gets a refusal reply.

Commands

Action	Accepted forms	Context	Notes
Help	`help`, `commands`	PR or issue	Lists commands with examples.
Status	`status`, `settings`	PR or issue	Shows CI gate, auto-commit, `use_updates_branch`, and a style-guide preview.
Set style	`style "<text>"`, `style '<text>'`, `style <text>`	PR or issue	Sets the style guide. Quoted or unquoted.
CI gate on/off	`enable ci-gate`, `enable ci gate`, `disable ci-gate`, `disable ci gate`	PR or issue	Toggles the CI gate. Dash or space.
Auto-commit on/off	`enable auto-commit`, `enable auto commit`, `disable auto-commit`, `disable auto commit`	PR or issue	Toggles auto-commit. Still requires the `DOCAGENT_WRITE_COMMITS` env var to actually commit.
Update now	`update docs now`, `update docs`, `update documentation now`, `update`	PR only	Forces a docs analysis on the current PR, ignoring trigger mode.

Behavior notes

Parsing. ZAR first matches commands with a fast deterministic parser; if that doesn’t match, it falls back to interpreting the comment with Claude. Plain forms above always match the fast path.
Replies. ZAR responds in a threaded reply, mentioning the author, confirming the change or explaining why it couldn’t act (e.g. “didn’t understand the command”, or “update” used outside a PR).
Quotes for style. Both "…" and '…' work; unquoted text is taken up to the end of the command. Use quotes when the style text contains punctuation.
Immediate effect. Toggles and style changes apply right away; there’s no separate confirmation step.

Examples

@docagent help
@zar status
@docagent style "US English. Short sentences. Params in tables. One code example per endpoint."
/docagent enable ci-gate
@docagent disable auto-commit
@zar update docs now

Commands — narrative guide.
CI gate · Auto-commit · Style guide — what the toggles control.

​Commands reference

​Invocation

​Permission

​Commands

​Behavior notes

​Examples

​Related