Get the badge

If your CLI meets the standard, say so. Drop a badge in your README that links to the conformance checklist and tells users (and their agents) what to expect.

Pick the level you actually meet — Core (all the invariants) or Full (Core + the pattern SHOULDs). Be honest; conformance is a claim about behavior, not a logo.

The badges

 

Copy-paste (Markdown)

Core:

[![Agent CLI Guidelines: Core](https://aclig.dev/badge/agent-cli-guidelines-core.svg)](https://aclig.dev/conformance/)

Full:

[![Agent CLI Guidelines: Full](https://aclig.dev/badge/agent-cli-guidelines-full.svg)](https://aclig.dev/conformance/)

HTML

<a href="https://aclig.dev/conformance/">
  <img alt="Agent CLI Guidelines: Full" src="https://aclig.dev/badge/agent-cli-guidelines-full.svg">
</a>

Prefer shields.io?

A generated equivalent, if you’d rather not hotlink the SVG:

[![Agent CLI Guidelines](https://img.shields.io/badge/Agent_CLI_Guidelines-Full-5b5bd6?labelColor=16162a)](https://aclig.dev/conformance/)

A one-line conformance statement

Plain text for a README line, release notes, or a tool’s --help/agent output:

Follows the Agent CLI Guidelines (v0.4, Full) — read-only by default, structured,
self-describing, stable exit codes. https://aclig.dev

Cite the version

The standard is versioned (currently v0.4) — see Evolution. When you claim conformance, name the version and level you targeted (e.g. “Agent CLI Guidelines v0.4, Core”) so the claim stays meaningful as the standard evolves.

Worked examples

Two read-only CLIs built to Full conformance, in different domains — useful references for what the checklist looks like in real code:

• nxstate — a read-only Cisco Nexus state CLI. A clean read surface over a network device.
• gfly (docs) — a read-only Google Flights CLI for agents. A useful reference for conforming over an untrusted, reverse-engineered upstream: parse breakage surfaces as a SCHEMA_DRIFT exit code, rate-limits/CAPTCHA as a BLOCKED code with retryAfterSeconds, a swappable backend sits behind one stable schemaVersion envelope, and a persistent cross-process throttle keeps the read path polite without hanging an agent loop.

Both wear the badge in their READMEs.