Manual invocation

This page is for an experimental, not officially supported path. Normal lmctl users never set a caller identity marker by hand.

lmctl identity is a logical team slot:

<teamfile>:<alias>

It is not a model name. lmctl derives that slot from the session id in LMCTL_SELF_SESSIONID.

lmctl sets LMCTL_SELF_SESSIONID automatically for member sessions it starts through lmctl chat and lmctl terminal. Child lmctl commands inherit it, so member-run chat knows which member is acting. With default queue settings, busy targets return a busy error; with the opt-in mailbox queue enabled, identity is what lets lmctl attach queued mail to a (sender, receiver) lane.

If you run one of those commands manually outside a member session, lmctl may print:

lmctl <cmd>: LMCTL_SELF_SESSIONID is not set — it looks like you are running lmctl
manually, outside a member session that lmctl started. Running lmctl this way is
not officially supported.
To experiment with it manually: https://lmctl.com/lmctl/docs/manual-invocation

If you insist on experimenting, set LMCTL_SELF_SESSIONID to a member's sessionid= value from that member's _MEMBER_ line in the teamfile. This may misattribute messages, may fail if the session is stale or unregistered, and may change in a future release.

To answer "what model is member X?", use lmctl health <teamfile> <alias>. Do not ask the member; models routinely hallucinate their own model name.