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Temporal CLI command reference

The Temporal CLI provides direct access to a Temporal Service via the terminal. It's a powerful tool for managing, monitoring, and debugging Temporal Applications. You can use it to start, stop, inspect and operate on Workflows and Activities, and perform administrative tasks such as Namespace, Schedule, and Task Queue management.

The Temporal CLI also includes an embedded Temporal Service suitable for use in development and CI/CD. It includes the Temporal Server, SQLite persistence, and the Temporal Web UI.

note

When upgrading from tctl to the Temporal CLI, make sure to update your environment variables and use updated commands. For details, see CLI release notes.

Install the Temporal CLI​

How to download and install the Temporal CLI

The Temporal CLI is available on MacOS, Windows, and Linux.

How to install the Temporal CLI on Mac OS​

Choose one of the following install methods to install the Temporal CLI on MacOS:

  • Install the Temporal CLI with Homebrew.
brew install temporal

How to install the Temporal CLI on Linux​

Choose one of the following install methods to install the Temporal CLI on Linux:

How to install the Temporal CLI on Windows​

Choose one of the following methods to install the Temporal CLI on Windows:

Command set​

Configuration​

The following information provides important configuration details.

Namespace registration​

Namespaces are pre-registered at startup for immediate use. Customize pre-registered Namespaces with the following command:

temporal server start-dev --namespace foo --namespace bar

Register Namespaces with namespace create:

temporal operator namespace create --namespace foo

Enable or disable Temporal UI​

By default, the Temporal UI is enabled when running the development server using the Temporal CLI. To disable the UI, use the --headless modifier:

temporal server start-dev --headless

Dynamic configuration​

Advanced Temporal CLI configuration requires a dynamic configuration file.

To set values on the command line, use --dynamic-config-value KEY=JSON_VALUE. For example, enable the Search Attribute cache:

temporal server start-dev --dynamic-config-value system.forceSearchAttributesCacheRefreshOnRead=false

This setting makes created Search Attributes immediately available.

Environment variables​

The following table describes the environment variables you can set for the Temporal CLI.

VariableDefinitionClient Option
TEMPORAL_ADDRESSHost and port (formatted as host:port) for the Temporal Frontend Service.--address
TEMPORAL_CODEC_AUTHAuthorization header for requests to Codec Server.--codec-auth
TEMPORAL_CODEC_ENDPOINTEndpoint for remote Codec Server.--codec-endpoint
TEMPORAL_NAMESPACENamespace in Temporal Workflow. Default: "default".--namespace
TEMPORAL_TLS_CAPath to server CA certificate.--tls-ca-path
TEMPORAL_TLS_CERTPath to x509 certificate.--tls-cert-path
TEMPORAL_TLS_DISABLE_HOST_VERIFICATIONDisables TLS host name verification. Default: false.--tls-disable-host-verification
TEMPORAL_TLS_KEYPath to private certificate key.--tls-key-path
TEMPORAL_TLS_SERVER_NAMEOverride for target TLS server name.--tls-server-name

Proxy support​

The Temporal CLI provides support for users who are operating behind a proxy. This feature ensures seamless communication even in network-restricted environments.

Setting up proxy support​

If you are behind a proxy, you'll need to instruct the Temporal CLI to route its requests via that proxy. You can achieve this by setting the HTTPS_PROXY environment variable.

export HTTPS_PROXY=<host>:<port>

Replace <host> with the proxy's hostname or IP address, and <port> with the proxy's port number.

Once set, you can run the Temporal CLI commands as you normally would.

note

Temporal CLI uses the gRPC library which natively supports HTTP CONNECT proxies. The gRPC library checks for the HTTPS_PROXY (and its case-insensitive variants) environment variable to determine if it should route requests through a proxy.

In addition to HTTPS_PROXY, gRPC also respects the NO_PROXY environment variable. This can be useful if there are specific addresses or domains you wish to exclude from proxying.

For more information, see Proxy in the gRPC documentation.

Auto-completion​

Enable auto-completion using the following commands.

zsh auto-completion​

  1. Add the following line to your ~/.zshrc startup script:

    eval "$(temporal completion zsh)"

  2. Re-launch your shell or run:

    source ~/.zshrc

Bash auto-completion​

  1. Install bash-completion and add the software to your ~/.bashrc.

  2. Add the following line to your ~/.bashrc startup script:

    eval "$(temporal completion bash)"

  3. Re-launch your shell or run:

    source ~/.bashrc
note

If auto-completion fails with the error: bash: _get_comp_words_by_ref: command not found, you did not successfully install bash-completion. This package must be loaded into your shell for temporal auto-completion to work.

Fish auto-completion​

  1. Create the Fish custom completions directory if it does not already exist:

    mkdir -p ~/.config/fish/completions

  2. Configure the completions to load when needed. Note: the file name must be temporal.fish or the completions will not be found:

    echo 'eval "$(temporal completion fish)"' >~/.config/fish/completions/temporal.fish

  3. Re-launch your shell or run:

    source ~/.config/fish/completions/temporal.fish

Temporal dev server​

How to start the Temporal development server

To start the Temporal development server run the following command:

temporal server start-dev

This command automatically starts the Web UI, creates the default Namespace, and uses an in-memory database.

The Temporal Server should be available on localhost:7233 and the Temporal Web UI should be available at http://localhost:8233.

The in-memory SQLite database does not persist if you stop the dev server. Use the --db-filename option to specify a database file, persisting application state. This is helpful if you plan on stopping and re-starting the dev server.

temporal server start-dev --db-filename temporal.db
note

Local databases created with --db-filename may not be compatible with newer versions of the Temporal CLI. The temporal server command is only intended for development environments.

For the full list of dev server options use the --help flag:

temporal server start-dev --help

Common CLI operations​

The following are some of the more common operations you can perform with the Temporal CLI.

Start a Workflow​

In another terminal, use the following commands to interact with the Server. The following command starts a Workflow:

$ temporal workflow start \
  --task-queue hello-world \
  --type MyWorkflow \
  --workflow-id 123 \
  --input 456

Running execution:
  WorkflowId                                   123
  RunId       357074e4-0dd8-4c44-8367-d92536dd0943
  Type        MyWorkflow
  Namespace   default
  TaskQueue   hello-world
  Args        [456]

Shorthand options are available:

temporal workflow start --task-queue hello-world --type MyWorkflow --workflow-id 123 --input 456

You can also list and describe Workflows:

$ temporal workflow list

  Status   WorkflowId     Name       StartTime
  Running         123  MyWorkflow  14 seconds ago

$ temporal workflow describe --workflow-id 123

{
  "executionConfig": {
    "taskQueue": {
      "name": "hello-world",
      "kind": "Normal"
    },
    "workflowExecutionTimeout": "0s",
    "workflowRunTimeout": "0s",
    "defaultWorkflowTaskTimeout": "10s"
  },
  "workflowExecutionInfo": {
    "execution": {
      "workflowId": "123",
      "runId": "357074e4-0dd8-4c44-8367-d92536dd0943"
    },
    "type": {
      "name": "MyWorkflow"
    },
    "startTime": "2023-04-15T06:42:31.191137Z",
    "status": "Running",
    "historyLength": "2",
    "executionTime": "2023-04-15T06:42:31.191137Z",
    "memo": {

    },
    "autoResetPoints": {

    },
    "stateTransitionCount": "1"
  },
  "pendingWorkflowTask": {
    "state": "Scheduled",
    "scheduledTime": "2023-04-15T06:42:31.191173Z",
    "originalScheduledTime": "2023-04-15T06:42:31.191173Z",
    "attempt": 1
  }
}

For more detailed output in JSON format, use the following command:

$ temporal workflow list --fields long --output json

[
  {
    "execution": {
      "workflow_id": "123",
      "run_id": "357074e4-0dd8-4c44-8367-d92536dd0943"
    },
    "type": {
      "name": "MyWorkflow"
    },
    "start_time": "2023-04-15T06:42:31.191137Z",
    "status": 1,
    "execution_time": "2023-04-15T06:42:31.191137Z",
    "memo": {},
    "task_queue": "hello-world"
  }
]

Filter out Workflows based on Workflow Type with jq:

$ temporal workflow list --fields long --output json | jq '.[].type.name'

"OtherWorkflow"
"MyWorkflow"
"MyWorkflow"

To count the number of Workflows, use the following command:

$ temporal workflow list --fields long --output json | jq '.[].type.name' | uniq -c

   1 "OtherWorkflow"
   2 "MyWorkflow"

To see the full range of Workflow-related commands, run temporal workflow or see the Temporal CLI workflow command reference.

For a full list of available commands, run temporal without arguments or see Available commands.

Customize your environment variables​

To communicate with a different Server, like a production Namespace on Temporal Cloud:

  1. Create an environment named prod.
  2. Pass --env prod to commands, like temporal workflow list --env prod.

To create a new environment and set its properties:

temporal env set prod.namespace production.f45a2
temporal env set prod.address production.f45a2.tmprl.cloud:7233
temporal env set prod.tls-cert-path /temporal/certs/prod.pem
temporal env set prod.tls-key-path /temporal/certs/prod.key

Check your settings:

$ temporal env get prod

  address        production.f45a2.tmprl.cloud:7233
  namespace      production.f45a2
  tls-cert-path  /temporal/certs/prod.pem
  tls-key-path   /temporal/certs/prod.key

Run a command to test the connection:

$ temporal workflow list --env prod

For a full list of properties, use temporal env set -h.

$ temporal env set -h

OPTIONS:
   Client Options:

   --address value                          The host and port (formatted as host:port) for the Temporal Frontend Service. [$TEMPORAL_CLI_ADDRESS]
   --codec-auth value                       Sets the authorization header on requests to the Codec Server. [$TEMPORAL_CLI_CODEC_AUTH]
   --codec-endpoint value                   Endpoint for a remote Codec Server. [$TEMPORAL_CLI_CODEC_ENDPOINT]
   --context-timeout value                  An optional timeout for the context of an RPC call (in seconds). (default: 5) [$TEMPORAL_CONTEXT_TIMEOUT]
   --env value                              Name of the environment to read environmental variables from. (default: "default")
   --grpc-meta value [ --grpc-meta value ]  Contains gRPC metadata to send with requests (format: key=value). Values must be in a valid JSON format.
   --namespace value, -n value              Identifies a Namespace in the Temporal Workflow. (default: "default") [$TEMPORAL_CLI_NAMESPACE]
   --tls-ca-path value                      Path to server CA certificate. [$TEMPORAL_CLI_TLS_CA]
   --tls-cert-path value                    Path to x509 certificate. [$TEMPORAL_CLI_TLS_CERT]
   --tls-disable-host-verification          Disables TLS host name verification if already enabled. (default: false) [$TEMPORAL_CLI_TLS_DISABLE_HOST_VERIFICATION]
   --tls-key-path value                     Path to private certificate key. [$TEMPORAL_CLI_TLS_KEY]
   --tls-server-name value                  Provides an override for the target TLS server name. [$TEMPORAL_CLI_TLS_SERVER_NAME]

   Display Options:

   --color value  when to use color: auto, always, never. (default: "auto")