---
title: "Quickstart"
description: "Manage secrets with Infisical CLI"
---

The CLI is designed for a variety of secret management applications ranging from local development to CI/CD and production scenarios.

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Local development">
    In the following steps, we explore how to use the Infisical CLI to fetch back environment variables from Infisical
    and inject them into your local development process.
    
    <Note>
    If you prefer learning by watching, you can follow along our step-by-step video tutorial [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzDQC7nY3YY).
    </Note>

    <Steps>
      <Step title="Log in with the CLI">
        Start by running the `infisical login` command to authenticate with Infisical.

        ```bash
        infisical login
        ```
        <Note>
          If you are in a containerized environment such as WSL 2 or Codespaces, run `infisical login -i` to avoid browser based login
        </Note>
      </Step>
      <Step title="Initialize Infisical for your project">
        Next, navigate to your project and initialize Infisical.

        ```bash
        # navigate to your project
        cd /path/to/project

        # initialize infisical
        infisical init
        ```

        The `infisical init` command creates a `.infisical.json` file, containing [local project settings](./project-config), at the location where the command is executed.

        <Note>
          The `.infisical.json` file does not contain any sensitive data, so you may commit it to your git repository.
        </Note>
      </Step>
      <Step title="Inject environment variables">
        Finally, pass environment variables from Infisical into your application.

        <Tabs>
          <Tab title="Feed secrets to your application">
            ```bash
            infisical run --env=dev --path=/apps/firefly -- [your application start command] # e.g. npm run dev

            # example with node (nodemon)
            infisical run --env=staging --path=/apps/spotify -- nodemon index.js

            # example with flask
            infisical run --env=prod --path=/apps/backend -- flask run

            # example with spring boot - maven
            infisical run --env=dev --path=/apps/ -- ./mvnw spring-boot:run --quiet
            ```

          </Tab>
          <Tab title="Feed secrets via custom aliases (advanced)">
            Custom aliases can utilize secrets from Infisical. Suppose there is a custom alias `yd` in `custom.sh` that runs `yarn dev` and needs the secrets provided by Infisical.
            ```bash
            #!/bin/sh

            yd() {
              yarn dev
            }
            ```

            To make the secrets available from Infisical to `yd`, you can run the following command:

            ```bash
            infisical run --env=prod --path=/apps/reddit --command="source custom.sh && yd"
            ```
          </Tab>
        </Tabs>

        View all available options for `run` command [here](./commands/run)
      </Step>
    </Steps>

  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Staging, production & all other use cases">
    In the following steps, we explore how to use the Infisical CLI in a non-local development scenario
    to fetch back environment variables and export them to a file.
    <Steps>
      <Step title="Create a machine identity and obtain credentials for it">
        Follow the steps listed [here](/documentation/platform/identities/universal-auth) to create a machine identity and obtain a **client ID** and **client secret** for it.
      </Step>
      <Step title="Obtain a machine identity access token">
        Run the following command to authenticate with Infisical using the **client ID** and **client secret** credentials from step 1 and set the `INFISICAL_TOKEN` environment variable to the retrieved access token.
        
        ```bash
        export INFISICAL_TOKEN=$(infisical login --method=universal-auth --client-id=<identity-client-id> --client-secret=<identity-client-secret> --silent --plain) # --plain flag will output only the token, so it can be fed to an environment variable. --silent will disable any update messages.
        ```

        The CLI is configured to look out for the `INFISICAL_TOKEN` environment variable, so going forward any command used will be authenticated.

        Alternatively, assuming you have an access token on hand, you can also pass it directly to the CLI using the `--token` flag in conjunction with other CLI commands.

        <Info>
        Keep in mind that the machine identity access token has a limited lifetime. It is recommended to use it only for the duration of the task at hand.
        You can [refresh the token](./commands/token) if needed.
        </Info>
      </Step>
      <Step title="Export environment variables back into a file">
        Finally, export the environment variables from Infisical to a file of choice.

        ```bash
        # export variables to a .env file (with export keyword)
        infisical export --format=dotenv-export > .env

        # export variables to a YAML file
        infisical export --format=yaml > secrets.yaml
        ```
      </Step>
    </Steps>

  </Tab>
</Tabs>

<Note>
  Starting with CLI version v0.4.0, you can now choose to log in via Infisical Cloud (US/EU) or your own self-hosted instance by simply running `infisical login` and following the on-screen instructions — no need to manually set the `INFISICAL_API_URL` environment variable.

For versions prior to v0.4.0, the CLI defaults to the US Cloud. To connect to the EU Cloud or a self-hosted instance, set the `INFISICAL_API_URL` environment variable to `https://eu.infisical.com` or your custom URL.

</Note>

<Tip>
  ## Custom Request Headers

The Infisical CLI supports custom HTTP headers for requests to servers protected by authentication services such as Cloudflare Access. Configure these headers using the `INFISICAL_CUSTOM_HEADERS` environment variable:

```bash
# Syntax: headername1=headervalue1 headername2=headervalue2
export INFISICAL_CUSTOM_HEADERS="Access-Client-Id=your-client-id Access-Client-Secret=your-client-secret"

# Execute Infisical commands after setting the environment variable
infisical secrets
```

This functionality enables secure interaction with Infisical instances that require specific authentication headers.

</Tip>

## History

Your terminal keeps a history with the commands you run. When you create Infisical secrets directly from your terminal, they'll stay there for a while.

For security and privacy concerns, we recommend you to configure your terminal to ignore those specific Infisical commands.

<Accordion title="Ignore commands">
  <Tabs>
    <Tab title="Unix/Linux">
        <Tip>
          `$HOME/.profile` is pretty common but, you could place it under `$HOME/.profile.d/infisical.sh` or any profile file run at login 
        </Tip>

        ```bash
        cat <<EOF >> $HOME/.profile && source $HOME/.profile

        # Ignoring specific Infisical CLI commands
        DEFAULT_HISTIGNORE=$HISTIGNORE
        export HISTIGNORE="*infisical secrets set*:$DEFAULT_HISTIGNORE"
        EOF
        ```

    </Tab>
    <Tab title="Windows">
        If you're on WSL, then you can use the Unix/Linux method.

        <Tip>
          Here's some [documentation](https://superuser.com/a/1658331) about how to clear the terminal history, in PowerShell and CMD
        </Tip>

    </Tab>

  </Tabs>
</Accordion>

## FAQ

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Can I connect the CLI to my self-hosted Infisical instance?">
    Yes. The CLI is set to connect to Infisical Cloud by default, but if you're running your own instance of Infisical, you can direct the CLI to it using one of the methods provided below.

    #### Method 1: Use the updated CLI

    Beginning with CLI version V0.4.0, it is now possible to choose between logging in through the Infisical cloud or your own self-hosted instance. Simply execute the `infisical login` command and follow the on-screen instructions.

    #### Method 2: Export environment variable

    You can point the CLI to the self-hosted Infisical instance by exporting the environment variable `INFISICAL_API_URL` in your terminal.

    <Tabs>
    <Tab title="Linux/MacOs">
      ```bash
      # set backend host
      export INFISICAL_API_URL="https://your-self-hosted-infisical.com/api"

      # remove backend host
      unset INFISICAL_API_URL
      ```

    </Tab>
    <Tab title="Windows Powershell">
      ```bash
      # set backend host
      setx INFISICAL_API_URL "https://your-self-hosted-infisical.com/api"

      # remove backend host
      setx INFISICAL_API_URL ""

      # NOTE: Once set or removed, please restart powershell for the change to take effect
      ```

    </Tab>

  </Tabs>

#### Method 3: Set manually on every command

Another option to point the CLI to your self-hosted Infisical instance is to set it via a flag on every command you run.

```bash
# Example
infisical <any-command> --domain="https://your-self-hosted-infisical.com/api"
```

  </Accordion>
  <Accordion title="Can I use the CLI with service tokens?">
    To use Infisical for non local development scenarios, please create a service token. The service token will allow you to authenticate and interact with Infisical. Once you have created a service token with the required permissions, you’ll need to feed the token to the CLI.

    ```bash
      infisical export --token=<service-token>
      infisical secrets --token=<service-token>
      infisical run --token=<service-token> -- npm run dev
    ```

    #### Pass via shell environment variable
    The CLI is configured to look for an environment variable named `INFISICAL_TOKEN`. If set, it’ll attempt to use it for authentication.

    ```bash
      export INFISICAL_TOKEN=<service-token>
    ```

  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>