Introducing the Box CLI: An Open Source Command Line Interface from Box

This post was written by Allen-Michael Grobelny, a Senior Platform Solution Engineer at Box.

At Box, we’re always looking for new ways to make it easy to use our APIs. That’s why today, we are excited to introduce the Box CLI: a powerful command line interface for managing and interacting with the Box APIs. Using the Box CLI, Box Admins and developers can script routine processes and perform bulk actions with Box, all without having to write any code.

With the Box CLI, you can use a set of simple commands to interact with the Box APIs directly from your command line. This allows you to take full advantage of the Box APIs — even services you can’t manage in our web application or admin console. For example, you can create user accounts, create and manage webhooks, upload and download files, create folders and add files to those folders, and much more. You can also take action on behalf of users in your enterprise using the as-user feature, so long as you have the proper permissions.

Getting started with the Box CLI is simple. First, you’ll need to download one of the Box CLI installers for Mac or Windows. You can find those in our documentation. Next, you’ll need to create an application in the Box Developer Console, set your permissions and access levels, and download your public and private keys in the auto-generated config.json file. Then, you’ll need to authorize your app to your Box enterprise (if you aren’t the admin of your Box enterprise, they’ll need to authorize the app for you). We’ve provided instructions for doing this in our documentation. Lastly, you’ll need to set your CLI’s environment using the configuration file containing your app’s keys and settings. Once the CLI is configured correctly, you can start sending commands and interacting with the Box APIs.

For more information about using the Box CLI, check out our developer documentation site. You’ll need a Box Developer account in order to use the Box CLI. You can sign up for free or log in using your existing Box credentials.

Like many of our developer tools here at Box, the Box CLI is completely open source and available on Github. We’re excited to share the Box CLI with our developer community and look forward to working with you to build a tool that all Box developers will love. If you have any questions or run into issues, feel free to check out the Box Developer Forum.

Got an idea for how you can use the Box CLI or want to see additional functionality in the Box CLI? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.