---
title: "Quick usage"
description: "Manage secrets with Infisical CLI"
---

The CLI is designed for a variety of applications, ranging from local secret management to CI/CD and production scenarios. 
The distinguishing factor, however, is the authentication method used.

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Local development">
    To use the Infisical CLI in your development environment, simply run the command below and follow the interactive guide. 

    ```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>

    ## Initialize Infisical for your project

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

    # initialize infisical
    infisical init
    ```

    This will create `.infisical.json` file at the location the command was executed. This file contains your [local project settings](./project-config). It does not contain any sensitive data. 
    
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="CI/CD, Production usage, etc">
    To use Infisical for non local development scenarios, please create a [service token](../documentation/platform/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. 

    #### Pass as flag
    You may use the --token flag to set the token 

    ```
    infisical export --token=<>
    infisical secrets --token=<>
    infisical run --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.

    ```
    export INFISICAL_TOKEN=<>
    ```
    

  </Tab>
</Tabs>


## Inject environment variables
<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Feed secrets to your application">
    ```bash
    infisical run -- [your application start command]

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

    # example with flask
    infisical run -- flask run

    # example with spring boot - maven
    infisical run -- ./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 --command="source custom.sh && yd"
    ```
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

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

## Connect CLI to self hosted Infisical 

<Accordion title="Optional: point CLI to self-hosted">
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>
