Emacsclient

Always use emacsclient

The user has an Emacs server running. All Emacs operations must go through emacsclient, never emacs or emacs --batch. This includes both user-requested actions and agent-initiated operations like byte compilation, syntax checking, or running tests.

Examples

• Open a file: emacsclient --no-wait "/path/to/file"
• Evaluate elisp: emacsclient --eval '(some-function)'
• Open at a line: emacsclient --no-wait +42 "/path/to/file"
• Byte compile a file:

  emacsclient --eval '
  (byte-compile-file "/path/to/file.el")'
  

• Check parentheses:

  emacsclient --eval '
  (with-temp-buffer
    (insert-file-contents "/path/to/file.el")
    (check-parens))'
  

• Run ERT tests:

  emacsclient --eval '
  (progn
    (load "/path/to/test-file.el" nil t)
    (ert-run-tests-batch-and-exit "pattern"))'
  

Rules

• Always use emacsclient, never emacs or emacs --batch.
• Use --no-wait when opening files so the command returns immediately.
• Use --eval when evaluating elisp.
• Always format --eval elisp across multiple lines with proper indentation.
• Run emacsclient commands via the Bash tool.