Silo

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The silo command ​

Open Silo from the terminal. silo <path> brings the running app to the foreground (launching it first if it isn't running) and then opens what you pointed it at — mirroring VS Code's code command.

What it does ​

sh
silo .                 # open/activate a workspace for the current directory
silo ~/code/my-project # open/activate a workspace for that directory
silo ./README.md       # open a file in the active workspace
silo                   # just bring Silo to the foreground
  • A directory — if a workspace already exists for that folder, Silo activates it; otherwise it creates a new workspace rooted there and activates it. Relative paths (., ./sub) resolve against your shell's working directory.
  • A file — Silo opens the file in the active workspace. If no workspace is active, it first creates one rooted at the file's parent folder.
  • No argument — Silo is simply brought to the foreground (or launched).

A second silo invocation never opens a new window: it's forwarded to the already-running instance, which focuses and handles the path. Silo Dev and a release install are independent instances, each with its own command target.

Installing the command ​

The binary ships inside the app bundle but isn't on your PATH by default. The easiest way to add it:

From inside Silo — run File → Install silo Command in PATH. This writes a small shim to ~/.local/bin/silo pointing at the app binary. If ~/.local/bin isn't already on your PATH, the notification tells you to add it:

sh
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"   # add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc

Manually — point a shim or symlink at the app binary directly:

sh
ln -sf "/Applications/Silo.app/Contents/MacOS/silo" /usr/local/bin/silo

For a dev build, the binary lives under the Silo Dev app (Silo Dev.app/Contents/MacOS/silo); symlink that instead to drive the dev instance. Because the command works by launching the real binary (which is then forwarded to the running instance), pointing open -a Silo at the app won't pass the path — use the binary path or the installed shim.