Install the CLI

Bidirekt has two parts: the bidirekt CLI, which every pipeline and developer machine runs, and the broker, one server with its Postgres database that stores contracts and deployments. CLI installs the client, Broker puts the server in production, Running local starts both on your machine to try them, and Agent skill lets your coding agent write the contracts.

With curl#

$ curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bidirekt/cli/main/install.sh | sh -s -- v0.1.0-rc.1
bidirekt 0.1.0-rc.1 installed to /home/you/.local/bin/bidirekt

The script downloads that release for your system, checks it against the release's checksums.txt and installs it in ~/.local/bin, without sudo. A checksum that does not match stops it before anything is installed. When the directory is not on your PATH, it prints the line to add to your shell profile.

The version is written with or without the v: v0.1.0-rc.1 and 0.1.0-rc.1 install the same release. Without a version, the script installs the latest release, but only pre-releases are published so far, so it stops and names the newest one:

only pre-releases are published at https://github.com/bidirekt/cli/releases. Install the newest one with:
  curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bidirekt/cli/main/install.sh | sh -s -- v0.1.0-rc.1

-b picks the directory. A directory owned by root, such as /usr/local/bin, needs sudo on the sh:

$ curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bidirekt/cli/main/install.sh | sudo sh -s -- -b /usr/local/bin v0.1.0-rc.1

The CLI is built for Linux and macOS, on x86_64 and arm64.

From the GitHub Release#

Every release at https://github.com/bidirekt/cli/releases ↗ has one archive per system, named bidirekt_<version>_<os>_<arch>: linux and darwin in amd64 and arm64, as .tar.gz. Check the archive against checksums.txt before extracting it:

$ curl -sSfLO https://github.com/bidirekt/cli/releases/download/v0.1.0-rc.1/bidirekt_0.1.0-rc.1_linux_amd64.tar.gz
$ curl -sSfLO https://github.com/bidirekt/cli/releases/download/v0.1.0-rc.1/checksums.txt
$ sha256sum --check --ignore-missing checksums.txt
bidirekt_0.1.0-rc.1_linux_amd64.tar.gz: OK
$ tar -xzf bidirekt_0.1.0-rc.1_linux_amd64.tar.gz bidirekt
$ ./bidirekt version
bidirekt version 0.1.0-rc.1

On macOS, shasum -a 256 --check --ignore-missing checksums.txt does the same check.

Pointing it at your broker#

The CLI has no default broker. Save yours once:

$ bidirekt configure
Broker URL: https://broker.example.com

It goes into the default profile of ~/.config/bidirekt/config.json ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bidirekt/config.json when that is set, or the file BIDIREKT_CONFIG_FILE names). A profile is one broker: a group of companies, or a freelancer working for several clients, keeps one profile per broker and picks it with --profile or BIDIREKT_PROFILE:

$ bidirekt configure --profile acme --broker-url https://broker.acme.example
$ bidirekt can-i-deploy petstore_web --version 2.3.0 --environment production --profile acme

Environments such as production and staging live inside a broker, so they are never profiles.

The first of these wins: --broker-url, then BIDIREKT_BROKER_URL, then the active profile's URL. Every command that calls the broker first prints which one it uses and where it came from, on stderr:

Broker: https://broker.acme.example (profile: acme)

Without a broker. A command that has no broker fails without calling anything, on your machine and in a pipeline alike; it never asks:

no broker configured — pass --broker-url, set BIDIREKT_BROKER_URL, or run "bidirekt configure"

When the config file has other profiles, a second line names them and how to pick one:

the config file has the profile local — pass --profile local or set BIDIREKT_PROFILE=local

On your machine, run bidirekt configure. In a pipeline, set BIDIREKT_BROKER_URL, or write a profile with bidirekt configure --broker-url <url>, which never asks. Every option is in the CLI reference.