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name: perplexity description: | Search the web, ask questions, run deep research, and pull real-time finance data using Perplexity.ai from the terminal. Use this skill whenever the user asks to search with Perplexity, asks you to "perplexity this", wants a web-sourced answer with citations, requests deep research on a topic, wants stock quotes / crypto prices / market movers / company news / prediction markets, or wants to use their Perplexity subscription. Also use when the user says "ask perplexity", "research this", "look this up on perplexity", "use perplexity to find", "stock price of", "how is X doing today", "market today", "what's moving", or needs authoritative web-sourced answers with real citations and sources. Prefer this over other web search tools when the user explicitly mentions Perplexity or wants deep multi-step research. allowed-tools:

• Bash(perplexity *)

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Perplexity CLI

Unofficial CLI for Perplexity.ai — uses the user's Pro subscription via browser cookies (no API keys). Provides:

• Web search with citations, deep multi-step research, multi-turn conversations, 76+ models.
• Perplexity Finance: real-time quotes, market data, company news, prediction markets, watchlists.

Preflight check

Before first use, verify the CLI is installed and authenticated:

which perplexity && perplexity status

If perplexity is not found, the user needs to install it:

cd ~/projects/perplexity-cli  # or wherever the repo lives
uv tool install -e ".[browser]"
playwright install chromium

If not authenticated ("Not logged in"), the user must run perplexity login themselves — it opens a browser for interactive Cloudflare CAPTCHA + Google/email login. You cannot do this step for them.

Chat commands

Ask a question (quick web search)

perplexity ask "What is Rust?" --raw

This is the primary command. Sends a question to Perplexity's Pro search, returns a markdown answer with numbered citations like [1][2] and a list of source URLs.

Always use --raw when calling from code/scripts — it outputs plain text without Rich terminal formatting.

Options:

• --raw — Plain text output (use this when YOU are the consumer of the output)
• --model NAME — Choose model (default: pplx_pro). See Models section below
• --no-sources — Hide source list
• -t, --thread NAME — Name this conversation for follow-ups
• --finance — Bias the search toward finance sources (sets search_focus=finance). Use for questions like "what's moving tech stocks today?"

Deep Research

perplexity research "Compare Nordic vs US economic models" --raw

Triggers Perplexity's deep research mode (model pplx_alpha). Takes 1-3 minutes but produces thorough, multi-step analysis with extensive sourcing (30-50 citations). Use for complex topics that need comprehensive analysis.

Follow-up questions

Continue an existing conversation. The server maintains full context.

perplexity followup "How tall is it exactly?" --raw

perplexity ask "What is the tallest building?" -t buildings --raw
perplexity followup "How tall is it?" -t buildings --raw

Interactive chat (REPL)

For multi-turn conversations (user-facing, not for scripts):

perplexity chat

Slash commands inside the REPL: /new, /model NAME, /research, /sources, /quit.

List models / threads

perplexity models --mode search    # Chat models (60+)
perplexity models --mode research  # Deep research models
perplexity history                 # Recent threads from server
perplexity threads                 # Local named threads only

Key model names for --model:

• pplx_pro — Default, auto-selects best model (Perplexity)
• pplx_alpha — Deep research (used by research command)
• claude46opus, claude46sonnet — Anthropic
• gpt54_thinking — OpenAI
• gemini31pro_high — Google

Pipe support

echo "Explain this error" | perplexity ask --raw
cat error.log | perplexity ask "What's wrong here?" --raw
git diff | perplexity ask "Review these changes" --raw

Finance commands

All finance commands default to country=US and accept --country XX to override. Every command accepts --json for machine-readable output (pipeable into jq).

Individual ticker

perplexity finance quote NVDA              # price, change, volume, PE, 52w, after-hours
perplexity finance quote NVDA --history    # include intraday price history
perplexity finance quote BTCUSD            # crypto works too (USD-suffixed)

perplexity finance profile AAPL            # company description, exchange, industry
perplexity finance why NVDA                # AI-generated explanation of today's move + sources
perplexity finance news NVDA --limit 10    # publisher news for ticker
perplexity finance timeline NVDA           # narrative news timeline with source URLs

Market overview

perplexity finance market                  # aggregate: summary + indices + movers
perplexity finance movers                  # top gainers/losers
perplexity finance indices                 # S&P, Dow, Nasdaq (stocks by default)
perplexity finance indices --market crypto # major crypto indices
perplexity finance sectors                 # sector ETFs (XLK, XLE, XLY, ...)
perplexity finance fixed-income            # fixed income summary

Prediction markets

Polymarket-backed probabilities for finance, crypto, politics, earnings.

perplexity finance predictions                   # tag=finance by default
perplexity finance predictions --tag politics
perplexity finance predictions --tag crypto --limit 20

Personal

perplexity finance watchlist               # user's saved tickers
perplexity finance portfolio               # Plaid-linked portfolio overview (if connected)

Search tickers

perplexity finance search apple            # autosuggest → returns ticker candidates

Usage patterns

Quick factual question

perplexity ask "What is the population of Tokyo?" --raw

Research with follow-ups

perplexity research "How does Bluetooth Low Energy work?" -t ble --raw
perplexity followup "What about the security vulnerabilities?" -t ble --raw

Get answer for use in another tool

ANSWER=$(perplexity ask "What is the latest stable Rust version?" --raw)

Finance one-liners

# Current price as a number
perplexity finance quote NVDA --json | jq '.price'

# Top 3 movers by percent change
perplexity finance movers --json | jq '.[:3] | .[] | {symbol, change_percent}'

# Is the market up or down today?
perplexity finance indices --json | jq '.[] | select(.symbol=="ESUSD") | .change_percent'

# Why did a stock move today?
perplexity finance why TSLA --json | jq -r '.explanation'

Important notes

• Always use --raw when you (Claude) are consuming chat output — Rich formatting adds ANSI codes that clutter your context
• Use --json for finance commands when scripting — human output includes colors and tables
• Use --no-sources if you only need the answer text without the source URL list
• Deep research takes 1-3 minutes — warn the user before running it
• Sessions expire after weeks — if you get auth errors, tell the user to run perplexity login
• This uses the user's subscription — each query counts against their Perplexity Pro usage (finance endpoints share the chat rate-limit bucket). Don't make unnecessary calls.
• Finance data is delayed — it's based on the public-facing /finance UI, which is not real-time tick data
• Finance endpoints can change without notice — Perplexity's internal API is not versioned publicly. If a command fails with a parse error, the endpoint shape likely changed.

Auth details

Cookies stored in ~/.perplexity/storage_state.json. Named threads in ~/.perplexity/threads/. Config dir overridable via PERPLEXITY_HOME env var or --storage global flag.