diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index f4218109b96..c75681e0da6 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -7,10 +7,10 @@ python:
 
 services:
   - docker
-  
+
 before_script:
   - docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.ci.yml up --build -d
 
 script:
-  - docker exec -it cvat /bin/bash -c 'python3 manage.py test cvat/apps/engine'
+  - docker exec -it cvat /bin/bash -c 'python3 manage.py test cvat/apps/engine utils/cli'
   - docker exec -it cvat /bin/bash -c 'cd cvat-core && npm install && npm run test && npm run coveralls'
diff --git a/.vscode/launch.json b/.vscode/launch.json
index ee8bb4fb3d2..069fe74d589 100644
--- a/.vscode/launch.json
+++ b/.vscode/launch.json
@@ -135,6 +135,7 @@
                 "--settings",
                 "cvat.settings.testing",
                 "cvat/apps/engine",
+                "utils/cli"
             ],
             "django": true,
             "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
diff --git a/utils/cli/README.md b/utils/cli/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..ac42718620e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/utils/cli/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+# Command line interface (CLI)
+**Description**
+A simple command line interface for working with CVAT tasks. At the moment it
+implements a basic feature set but may serve as the starting point for a more
+comprehensive CVAT administration tool in the future.
+
+Overview of functionality:
+
+- Create a new task (supports name, bug tracker, labels JSON, local/share/remote files)
+- Delete tasks (supports deleting a list of task IDs)
+- List all tasks (supports basic CSV or JSON output)
+- Download JPEG frames (supports a list of frame IDs)
+- Dump annotations (supports all formats via format string)
+
+**Usage**
+```bash
+usage: cli.py [-h] [--auth USER:[PASS]] [--server-host SERVER_HOST]
+              [--server-port SERVER_PORT] [--debug]
+              {create,delete,ls,frames,dump} ...
+
+Perform common operations related to CVAT tasks.
+
+positional arguments:
+  {create,delete,ls,frames,dump}
+
+optional arguments:
+  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
+  --auth USER:[PASS]    defaults to the current user and supports the PASS
+                        environment variable or password prompt.
+  --server-host SERVER_HOST
+                        host (default: localhost)
+  --server-port SERVER_PORT
+                        port (default: 8080)
+  --debug               show debug output
+```
+**Examples**
+- List all tasks
+`cli.py --auth user:pass --server-host localhost --server-port 8080 ls`
+- Create a task
+`cli.py create --name "new task" --labels labels.json local file1.jpg file2.jpg`
+- Delete some tasks
+`cli.py delete 100 101 102`
+- Dump annotations
+`cli.py dump --format "CVAT XML 1.1 for images" 103 output.xml`
diff --git a/utils/cli/cli.py b/utils/cli/cli.py
index 3407b23b4b8..96b6881fdf8 100755
--- a/utils/cli/cli.py
+++ b/utils/cli/cli.py
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ def main():
         except (requests.exceptions.HTTPError,
                 requests.exceptions.ConnectionError,
                 requests.exceptions.RequestException) as e:
-            log.info(e)
+            log.critical(e)
 
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':