Particle's full-stack Internet of Things (IoT) device platform gives you everything you need to securely and reliably connect your IoT devices to the web. For more details please visit www.particle.io.

Particle CLI

The Particle CLI is a powerful tool for interacting with your IoT devices and the Particle Cloud. The CLI uses node.js and can run on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It's also open source so you can edit and change it, and even send in your changes as pull requests if you want to share!

Table of Contents

• Installing
• Getting Started
  • particle setup
  • particle help
• Updating Firmware
  • Photon/P1/Electron
    • particle update
• Command Reference
• Known Issues
• Development
  • Installing
  • Running
  • Testing
  • Releasing a new version

Installing

For end-users, the most up-to-date installation instructions can be found here: macOS / Linux | Windows

Note: Some commands may require openssl to be installed on your system. You can install it using your package manager (e.g. brew install openssl on macOS).

Installing a staging version

Before proceeding with this section, remember that the staging version may contain bugs and issues that are not present in the production version.

Please use the staging versions only for testing purposes.

In case you're running macOS or Linux, you can install a staging version of the CLI by running the following command:

  MANIFEST_HOST=binaries.staging.particle.io bash <(curl -sL https://particle.io/install-cli)

For Windows, you can install a staging version of the CLI by downloading the installer from here.

In case you have already installed the CLI, you can update it to the staging version by running the following command:

  export PARTICLE_MANIFEST_HOST=binaries.staging.particle.io
  particle update-cli --version {STAGING_VERSION_TO_TEST}

Don't forget to turn off the updates to prevent issues while you're testing the staging version:

  particle update-cli --disable-updates

Once you're done testing the staging version, you can revert to the production version by running the following command:

  export PARTICLE_MANIFEST_HOST=binaries.particle.io
  particle update-cli --enable-updates
  particle update-cli --version {PRODUCTION_VERSION}

Getting Started

These next two commands are all you need to get started setting up an account, claiming a device, and discovering new features.

particle setup

Guides you through creating a new account, and claiming your device!

$ particle setup

particle help

Shows you what commands are available, and how to use them. You can also give the name of a command for detailed help.

$ particle help
$ particle help keys

particle update

If you wish to easily update Device OS on your device to a later version, you can use the particle update command. You can specify a version with the --target argument.

1. Connect your device via USB
2. Run particle update.

Command Reference

For the full list of commands, please see the CLI command reference.

Known Issues

• The Wireless Photon Setup Wizard will only automatically switch networks on OS X. Users of other operating systems will need to manually connect their computer to the Photon's Wi-Fi. You will be prompted during the wizard when this is required.

Development

Currently development is supported on macOS only!

Installing

1. Install Node.js [node@16.x and npm@8.x are required]
2. Clone this repository $ git clone git@github.com:particle-iot/particle-cli.git && cd ./particle-cli
3. Install external tools: openssl (e.g. brew install openssl)
4. Install dependencies $ npm install
5. View available commands $ npm run
6. Run the tests $ npm test
7. Run the CLI $ npm start
8. Start Hacking!

Running

When developing, run individual commands using:

$ npm start -- <command> <options> - e.g. $ npm start -- library view dotstar --readme

Anything after the -- delimiter is passed directly to the CLI (docs).

To test the source as it will be published:

1. Register the particle command globally: $ npm link
2. Run commands: $ particle --help (using standard argument formatting)

Testing

The Particle CLI has a number of automated test suites and related commands. The most important are:

• npm test - run all tests (NOTE: End-To-End tests require additional setup)
• npm run lint - run the linter and print any errors to your terminal
• npm run test:ci - run all tests excluding device-dependent end-to-end test as CI does
• npm run test:unit - run unit tests
• npm run test:integration - run integration tests
• npm run coverage - report code coverage stats

All tests use mocha, chai, and sinon with coverage handled by nyc.

We recommend running locally if you can as it greatly shortens your feedback loop. However, CI also runs against every PR and error reporting is publicly available.

CLI Packaging and Distribution

• Cli is packaged using pkg. The packaging is done using GitHub Actions and the executables are uploaded to binaries.particle.io/particle-cli.
• There are two installers that are created for the CLI:
  • Windows installer: particle-cli-setup.exe (This is an NSIS installer for Windows). You can see the installer script here ParticleCLISetup.nsi
  • Unix installer: install-cli (This is a shell script that installs the CLI on Unix systems). You can see the installer script here install-cli.sh
• The installers are created using GitHub Actions and are uploaded to binaries.particle.io/particle-cli/installer.
• The current supported platforms for the CLI are:
  • Windows
    • x64
  • macOS
    • x64
    • arm64
  • Linux
    • x64
    • arm64
    • arm

Releasing a new version

See RELEASE.md.