`kagi quick`

Generate a Kagi Quick Answer from the authenticated web product and return the full answer envelope, references, and follow-up questions.

Quick Answer demo

Synopsis

kagi quick [OPTIONS] <QUERY>

Description

kagi quick targets Kagi's Quick Answer web-product flow, not FastGPT and not the public Search API. It is useful when you want a fast answer plus references without opening a browser tab.

This command is ideal for:

factual questions with references
shell workflows that want a single answer envelope
quick terminal lookups with pretty or markdown output
automations that want the Quick Answer thread id for later inspection

Authentication

Required: KAGI_SESSION_TOKEN

Quick Answer uses subscriber session-token auth. The CLI accepts either:

the raw session token
the full Session Link URL such as https://kagi.com/search?token=...

Arguments

`<QUERY>` (Required)

The text to send to Quick Answer.

The CLI sends the query verbatim. It does not auto-append a trailing question mark, so both of these are valid:

kagi quick "what is rust"
kagi quick "what is rust?"

Options

`--format <FORMAT>`

Output format for the response.

Supported values: json, toon, compact, pretty, markdown

Default: json

kagi quick --format pretty "what is rust"
kagi quick --format markdown "what is rust"

`--no-color`

Disable ANSI colors in --format pretty.

kagi quick --format pretty --no-color "what is rust"

`--local-cache`

Store and reuse the response in the local cache under ~/.cache/kagi-cli or KAGI_CACHE_DIR.

`--cache-ttl <SECONDS>`

Override the local cache TTL. Quick answers default to 900 seconds when --local-cache is enabled.

`--lens <INDEX>`

Scope the query to one of your Kagi lenses by numeric index.

kagi quick --lens 0 "best rust tutorials"

Lens indices are user-specific. Use the same l= numeric value you would use with kagi search --lens.

Output Format

Default JSON output:

{
  "meta": {
    "version": "202603171911.stage.707e740",
    "trace": "trace-123"
  },
  "query": "what is rust",
  "lens": null,
  "message": {
    "id": "msg-1",
    "thread_id": "thread-1",
    "created_at": "2026-03-19T00:00:00Z",
    "state": "done",
    "prompt": "what is rust",
    "html": "<p>Rust is a systems programming language.</p>",
    "markdown": "Rust is a systems programming language."
  },
  "references": {
    "markdown": "[^1]: [Rust](https://www.rust-lang.org/) (26%)",
    "items": [
      {
        "index": 1,
        "title": "Rust",
        "domain": "www.rust-lang.org",
        "url": "https://www.rust-lang.org/",
        "contribution_pct": 26
      }
    ]
  },
  "followup_questions": [
    "Why is Rust memory-safe?"
  ]
}

Fields

Field	Type	Description
`meta`	object	Stream metadata such as version and trace id
`query`	string	The original query text sent to Quick Answer
`lens`	string or null	The requested lens index, if one was supplied
`message`	object	Final Quick Answer message payload
`references`	object	Reference markdown plus parsed reference items
`followup_questions`	array	Follow-up suggestions returned by Kagi

Examples

Basic Queries

kagi quick "what is rust"
kagi quick "best way to clean cast iron"

Pretty Terminal Output

kagi quick --format pretty "what is rust"

Markdown for Notes

kagi quick --format markdown "what is rust?" > quick-answer.md

Lens-Scoped Quick Answers

kagi quick --lens 0 "best rust tutorials"

JSON Processing

# Extract the answer body
kagi quick "what is rust" | jq -r '.message.markdown'

# Extract reference URLs
kagi quick "what is rust" | jq -r '.references.items[].url'

# Save the Quick Answer thread id
kagi quick "what is rust" | jq -r '.message.thread_id'

Requires an active Kagi subscription and session token
This command is single-turn only
The returned message.thread_id is informational today; there is no --thread-id follow-up mode yet
Output quality and references depend on the live Quick Answer product