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Using Anvil from a Local IDE

The Anvil CLI is currently in beta while we continue to make improvements.

The Anvil CLI allows you to work in your preferred IDE and sync your changes instantly to the Anvil Editor.

Follow the quickstart guide to get started:

Get Started with the Anvil CLI

Installing the Anvil CLI

To use the Anvil CLI, you first need to install it:

macOS/Linux

curl -fsSL https://anvil.works/install-cli.sh | sh

Windows PowerShell

irm https://anvil.works/install-cli.ps1 | iex

Windows CMD

curl -fsSL https://anvil.works/install-cli.cmd -o install.cmd && install.cmd && del install.cmd

Using npm

npm install -g @anvil-works/anvil-cli@latest
If you run into a permissions error when installing with npm, run the command with sudo instead: sudo npm install -g @anvil-works/anvil-cli@latest

Configuring the CLI

After installing the Anvil CLI, we recommend you first configure the CLI by running:

anvil configure

This will prompt you with the following configuration options:

  1. Default Anvil server: Set the default server to use when running anvil login and anvil watch. Press enter to set the default server as https://anvil.works. Enterprise customers will need to enter the URL for their Enterprise installation.

  2. Preferred Editor: Set your preferred local IDE to use when running anvil checkout --open. If you have any code editor command line tools installed, these will show up here. Setting a preferred editor

  3. Enable verbose logging: Set this to True to see detailed output in the terminal.

The CLI will then ask you to log in. You will then be directed to the browser to log into Anvil and grant the Anvil CLI access to your account.

Running anvil configure from the Anvil CLI

Running anvil configure from the Anvil CLI

Your configuration options will be saved in your config file.

Logging into Anvil

In order to use the Anvil CLI, you’ll need to log into your Anvil account. You can do this by running anvil login. You can log out of your account by running anvil logout.

Connecting to your Anvil app

If you already have an Anvil app cloned locally, you can skip this step and directly run anvil watch in your local app’s directory.

After logging in, you’ll need to checkout the Anvil app you want to work on locally. There are two ways to do this.

Choose your app from the terminal

Run the following command:

anvil checkout

This will present you with a list of your apps. Choose the app you’d like to checkout, and the CLI will create a directory with the same name as your app with all your app files inside.

Running anvil checkout lets you choose from a list of your apps

Running anvil checkout lets you choose from a list of your apps

Provide the app URL

You can also anvil checkout with your app’s URL and the name of the git directory that will be created. For example:

anvil checkout https://anvil.works/build/apps/W36XUTXGNPDK6VEA my-app
cd my-app

Syncing changes

In order to sync changes between your local app and the Anvil Editor, you’ll need to run anvil watch inside your app’s local directory.

cd my-app
anvil watch

The Anvil CLI will auto-detect which Anvil app to sync to.

If this fails, you can specify the app ID explicitly. For example:

anvil watch -A W36XUTXGNPDK6VEA

Syncing to Enterprise apps

When running anvil configure, you can set your Enterprise installation as your default server URL. This updates your config file to set anvilURL as your Enterprise URL.

You can also directly update the anvilURL value in your config file:

anvil config set anvilUrl https://anvil.mycompany.com

Setting anvilURL means that CLI commands such as login and watch will use that server by default.

Alternatively, you can manually specify the server URL to use each time you run login and watch.

anvil login anvil.mycompany.com
anvil watch --url anvil.mycompany.com

Multiple accounts

If you are logged in to more than one Anvil account or more than one Anvil installation, the Anvil CLI will usually infer the right installation and account from your setup. If there is any ambiguity, it will usually prompt you.

However, you can use --url and --user with the watch and logout commands to manually specify which installation and account to use.

For example

anvil watch --url anvil.company.com --user user@example.com
anvil logout --url anvil.company.com --user user@example.com

Anvil config file

The Anvil CLI is configured using a config.json file stored locally on your machine.

File locations:

  • macOS: ~/Library/Preferences/anvil-cli/config.json
  • Linux: ~/.config/anvil-cli/config.json
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\anvil-cli\Config\config.json

The config file stores:

  • Authentication tokens (one per logged-in account)
  • The default Anvil server URL (anvilUrl)
  • CLI settings such as devMode, verbose and preferredEditor

You can view your current configuration by running anvil config list.

Running anvil checkout list shows you your config file.

Running anvil checkout list shows you your config file.

You can also set values directly from the command line:

anvil config set anvilUrl https://anvil.mycompany.com

For more details, see the npm page.

Do you still have questions?

Our Community Forum is full of helpful information and Anvil experts.

Anvil Enterprise Quickstart

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