Getting Started With flowctl

After your account has been activated through the web app, you can begin to work with your data flows from the command line. This is not required, but it enables more advanced workflows or might simply be your preference.

Flow has a single binary, flowctl.

flowctl is available for:

Linux x86-64. All distributions are supported.
MacOS 11 (Big Sur) or later. Both Intel and M1 chips are supported.

To install, copy and paste the appropriate script below into your terminal. This will download flowctl, make it executable, and add it to your PATH.

For Linux:

sudo curl -o /usr/local/bin/flowctl -L 'https://github.com/estuary/flow/releases/latest/download/flowctl-x86_64-linux' && sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/flowctl

For Mac:

sudo curl -o /usr/local/bin/flowctl -L 'https://github.com/estuary/flow/releases/latest/download/flowctl-multiarch-macos' && sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/flowctl

Alternatively, Mac users can install with Homebrew:

brew tap estuary/flowctl
brew install flowctl

flowctl isn't currently available for Windows. For Windows users, we recommend running the Linux version inside WSL, or using a remote development environment.

The flowctl source files are also on GitHub here.

Once you've installed flowctl and are ready to begin working, authenticate your session using an access token.

Ensure that you have an Estuary account and have signed into the Flow web app before.
In the terminal of your local development environment, run:
```
flowctl auth login
```
In a browser window, the web app opens to the CLI-API tab.
Copy the access token.
Return to the terminal, paste the access token, and press Enter.

The token will expire after a predetermined duration. Repeat this process to re-authenticate.

Next steps

flowctl concepts: Learn more about using flowctl.
User guides: Check out some of the detailed user guides to see flowctl in action.