CLI Tool

The certivu CLI lets you sign and verify AI-generated content directly from the terminal — suited for shell scripts, CI pipelines, and quick manual testing.

Install

Via npm (recommended):

npm install -g @certivu/cli

Via Bun:

bun install -g @certivu/cli

Via install script (installs npm package automatically):

curl -fsSL https://certivu.ai/install.sh | sh

Verify the install:

certivu --version  # 1.2.0

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Configuration

The CLI reads config from three sources in priority order:

1. CLI flags (highest priority) — --api-key, --generator-id
2. Environment variables — CERTIVU_API_KEY, CERTIVU_GENERATOR_ID
3. Config file — ~/.config/certivu/config.json

Set persistent config with certivu config set:

certivu config set api-key ctv_key_abc123
certivu config set generator-id your-generator-uuid

certivu config get  # show current config

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Commands

certivu sign

Upload an image for server-side watermarking and signing. The API returns the watermarked image which is written to disk.

certivu sign ./output.jpg --model stable-diffusion-xl

✓ Signed
  Token       ctv_7f3kx9mq2...
  Record ID   rec-00000000-...
  Output      ./output.signed.jpg

Flags:

Flag	Description
--model <name>	AI model name — required
--generator-id <id>	Override generator ID from config
--output <path>	Output path for watermarked image (default: <file>.signed.<ext>)
--api-key <key>	Override API key from config
--base-url <url>	Override API base URL

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certivu verify

Verify content authenticity. Free — no API key required.

certivu verify ./image.jpg

Token is extracted automatically from XMP metadata or frequency-domain watermark. Pass --token to skip extraction:

certivu verify ./image.jpg --token ctv_7f3kx9mq2...

Authentic:

✓ Authentic — HIGH confidence
  Org         Acme AI
  Model       stable-diffusion-xl
  Signed      2026-06-07T12:00:00Z
  Source      watermark

  Signals: watermark ✓  record ✓  signature ✓

Not verified:

✗ Not verified — no_provenance_found
  Absence of provenance does not imply human origin.

  Signals: watermark ✗  record ✗  signature ✗

Tampered:

✗ Tampered — content has been modified since signing

  Signals: watermark ✓  record ✓  signature ✗

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certivu status

Lightweight token metadata lookup — no image upload needed. CDN-cacheable.

certivu status ctv_7f3kx9mq2...

✓ Active
  Record      rec-00000000-...
  Model       stable-diffusion-xl
  Signed      2026-06-07T12:00:00Z
  Generator   active
  Org         org-00000000-...

Use this to check if a token is still valid before embedding it, or to display provenance metadata without re-verifying the image.

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certivu config

certivu config get              # show all config values
certivu config set api-key ...  # save a value

Valid keys: api-key, generator-id, base-url.

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Environment variables

Variable	Description
CERTIVU_API_KEY	Your ctv_key_... API key
CERTIVU_GENERATOR_ID	Default generator UUID
CERTIVU_BASE_URL	Override API URL (default: https://api.certivu.ai)

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CI usage

# GitHub Actions example
- name: Sign AI output
  env:
    CERTIVU_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.CERTIVU_API_KEY }}
    CERTIVU_GENERATOR_ID: ${{ secrets.CERTIVU_GENERATOR_ID }}
  run: |
    curl -fsSL https://certivu.ai/install.sh | sh
    certivu sign ./output.jpg --model my-model
    # watermarked image written to ./output.signed.jpg

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GitHub Releases

All release binaries are available at github.com/certivu/certivu/releases:

Binary	Platform
certivu-linux-x64	Linux x86-64
certivu-macos-x64	macOS Intel
certivu-macos-arm64	macOS Apple Silicon