Help Scout

CLI for the HelpScout API. Manage conversations, customers, mailboxes, knowledge base articles, and more from the terminal. Covers both Inbox and Docs APIs with full CRUD, PII redaction, permissions, and multiple output formats.

hs

Use hs to interact with HelpScout from the terminal. Two API namespaces: hs inbox (Mailbox API — conversations, customers, users, teams, etc.) and hs docs (Docs API — sites, collections, categories, articles).

Auth

Inbox uses OAuth2 client credentials (App ID + App Secret). Docs uses an API key.

• hs inbox auth login — interactive setup, validates against the API
• hs docs auth login — prompt for Docs API key, validates
• hs inbox auth status / hs docs auth status — check stored credentials
• hs inbox auth logout / hs docs auth logout — remove credentials

Credential resolution order: OS keyring → config file. For non-interactive auth, use hs inbox config set --inbox-app-id <id> --inbox-app-secret <secret>.

Inbox commands

Conversations (conv)

• hs inbox conv list --status active --mailbox <id> --tag <name> --assigned-to <uid> --embed threads
• hs inbox conv get <id> --embed threads
• hs inbox conv create --mailbox <id> --subject "..." --customer <email> --body "..."
• hs inbox conv update <id> --status closed --subject "..."
• hs inbox conv delete <id>
• hs inbox conv threads list <conv-id>
• hs inbox conv threads reply <conv-id> --customer <email> --body "..." --status closed
• hs inbox conv threads note <conv-id> --body "..."
• hs inbox conv tags set <conv-id> --tag billing --tag urgent
• hs inbox conv fields set <conv-id> --field <id>=<value>
• hs inbox conv attachments upload <conv-id> --thread-id <id> --file ./path

Customers (cust)

• hs inbox cust list --query "email:[e-mail]"
• hs inbox cust get <id>
• hs inbox cust create --first-name Jane --last-name Doe --email [e-mail]
• hs inbox cust update <id> --last-name Smith
• hs inbox cust delete <id>

Mailboxes (mb)

• hs inbox mb list / hs inbox mb get <id>
• hs inbox mb folders list <mb-id> / hs inbox mb custom-fields list <mb-id>

Users

• hs inbox users list --email [e-mail] / hs inbox users get <id> / hs inbox users me
• hs inbox users status get <uid> / hs inbox users status set <uid> --status away

Teams

• hs inbox teams list / hs inbox teams members <team-id>

Organizations

• hs inbox organizations list --query "acme" / hs inbox organizations get <id>
• hs inbox organizations create --name "Acme Corp" / hs inbox organizations delete <id>

Tags / Ratings

• hs inbox tags list / hs inbox ratings list

Workflows (wf)

• hs inbox wf list / hs inbox wf run <id> --conversation-ids id1,id2
• hs inbox wf update-status <id> --status active

Webhooks (wh)

• hs inbox wh list / hs inbox wh get <id>
• hs inbox wh create --url https://... --events convo.created --secret s3cret
• hs inbox wh delete <id>

Saved replies

• hs inbox saved-replies list --mailbox-id <id>
• hs inbox saved-replies create --mailbox-id <id> --name "Greeting" --body "Hello..."

Reports

• hs inbox reports conversations --start 2025-01-01 --end 2025-01-31 --mailbox <id>
• Subcommands: chats, company, conversations, customers, docs, email, productivity, ratings, users

Tools

• hs inbox tools briefing — daily briefing summary
• hs inbox tools briefing --assigned-to <uid> --embed threads — agent-specific briefing with thread content

Docs commands

Sites

• hs docs sites list / hs docs sites get <id>
• hs docs sites create --subdomain help --title "Help Center"

Collections

• hs docs collections list --site <id> / hs docs collections get <id>
• hs docs collections create --site <id> --name "Getting Started"

Categories

• hs docs categories list <collection-id> / hs docs categories get <id>
• hs docs categories create --collection <id> --name "FAQ"
• hs docs categories reorder <collection-id> --categories id1,id2,id3

Articles

• hs docs articles list --collection <id> or --category <id>
• hs docs articles search --query "password reset" --site <id>
• hs docs articles get <id> / hs docs articles get <id> --draft
• hs docs articles create --collection <id> --name "How to reset" --text "Step 1..."
• hs docs articles update <id> --text "Updated..." --status published
• hs docs articles delete <id>
• hs docs articles draft save <id> --text "..." / hs docs articles draft delete <id>
• hs docs articles revisions list <id> / hs docs articles revisions get <id> <rev-id>
• hs docs articles upload <id> --file ./image.png

Redirects

• hs docs redirects list <site-id> / hs docs redirects find --site <id> --url /old-path
• hs docs redirects create --site <id> --url-mapping /old --redirect /new

Assets

• hs docs assets article upload --file ./img.png
• hs docs assets settings upload --file ./logo.png

Output & global flags

• --format table|json|json-full|csv — output format (default: table)
• --no-paginate — fetch all pages automatically
• --page <n> / --per-page <n> — pagination (defaults: 1, 25)
• --debug — show HTTP request/response details

Config

• hs config set --format json --inbox-default-mailbox 12345
• hs config get [key] — print one or all config values
• hs config path — print config file location
• Default location: ~/.config/hs/config.yaml (Linux/macOS), %AppData%\hs\config.yaml (Windows)

PII redaction

Inbox commands redact customer/user PII with deterministic fake identities. Controlled via config key inbox_pii_mode.

Mode	Effect
off	No redaction (default)
customers	Redact customer names, emails, phones
all	Redact both customers and users

• --unredacted flag on hs inbox disables redaction for one call (requires inbox_pii_allow_unredacted: true in config)

Permissions

Allowlist model — restrict which commands an agent can run. Empty policy = unrestricted.

• Set via config key inbox_permissions / docs_permissions — comma-separated resource:operation pairs
• Wildcards: *:read, conversations:*
• Operations: read, write, delete, *
• hs inbox permissions — inspect current policy, shows ALLOW/DENY per command

Example: hs inbox config set --inbox-permissions "conversations:read,customers:read,mailboxes:read"

Notes

• Self-update: hs update
• Shell completions: hs completion bash|zsh|fish|powershell