Viam CLI

The Viam CLI (command line interface) tool enables you to manage your machines and modular resources across organizations and locations from the command line. The CLI lets you:

• Retrieve organization and location information
• Manage machine fleet data and logs
• Control machines by issuing component and service commands
• Upload and manage modular resources in the Viam registry

For example, this CLI command moves a servo to the 75 degree position:

viam robots part run --robot 82c608a-1be9-46a5 --organization "Robot's Org" \
--location myLoc --part "myrobot-main" --data '{"name": "myServo", "angle_deg":75}' \
viam.component.servo.v1.ServoService.MoveRequest

Install

You can download the Viam CLI executable using one of the options below. Select the tab for your platform and architecture. If you are on Linux, you can use the uname -m command to determine your system architecture.

brew tap viamrobotics/brews
brew install viam

sudo curl -o /usr/local/bin/viam https://storage.googleapis.com/packages.viam.com/apps/viam-cli/viam-cli-stable-linux-arm64
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/viam

sudo curl -o /usr/local/bin/viam https://storage.googleapis.com/packages.viam.com/apps/viam-cli/viam-cli-stable-linux-amd64
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/viam

brew tap viamrobotics/brews
brew install viam

go install go.viam.com/rdk/cli/viam@latest

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/go/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc

To later update the Viam CLI tool on Linux, use the steps above to reinstall the latest version. to later update the Viam CLI tool on macOS, run brew upgrade viam.

Authenticate

Once you have installed the Viam CLI, you must authenticate your CLI session with Viam in order to run CLI commands.

You can authenticate your CLI session using either a personal access token, or an organization, location, or machine part API key. To use an organization API key to authenticate, you must first create an organization API key. Similarly, to authenticate using a location or machine part API key, you must first create a location or machine part API key.

• To authenticate your CLI session using a personal access token:

  viam login
  

  This will open a new browser window with a prompt to start the authentication process. If a browser window does not open, the CLI will present a URL for you to manually open in your browser. Follow the instructions to complete the authentication process.

• To authenticate your CLI session using an organization API key:

  viam login api-key --key-id <organization-api-key-uuid> --key <organization-api-key-secret-value>
  

  If you haven’t already, create an organization API key to use this authentication method.

• To authenticate your CLI session using a location API key:

  viam login api-key --key-id <location-api-key-uuid> --key <location-api-key-secret-value>
  

  If you haven’t already, create a location API key to use this authentication method.

• To authenticate your CLI session using a machine part API key:

  viam login api-key --key-id <machine-part-api-key-uuid> --key <machine-part-api-key-secret-value>
  

  If you haven’t already, create a machine part API key to use this authentication method.

An authenticated session is valid for 24 hours, unless you explicitly log out.

After the session expires or you log out, you must re-authenticate to use the CLI again.

Create an organization API key

To use an organization API key to authenticate your CLI session, you must first create one:

1. First, authenticate your CLI session. If your organization does not already have an organization API key created, authenticate using a personal access token or either a location API key or machine part API key.

2. Then, run the following command to create a new organization API key:

   viam organizations api-key create --org-id <org-id> --name <key-name>
   

   Where:

   • org-id is your organization ID. You can find your organization ID by running viam organizations list or by visiting your organization’s Settings page in the Viam app.
   • key-name is an optional name for your API key.

The command will return a key id and a key value. You will need both to authenticate.

Once created, you can use the organization API key to authenticate future CLI sessions or to connect to robots with the SDK.. To switch to using an organization API key for authentication right away, logout then log back in using viam login api-key.

An organization can have multiple API keys.

Create a location API key

To use an location API key to authenticate your CLI session, you must first create one:

1. First, authenticate your CLI session. If you don’t already have a location API key created, authenticate using a personal access token, an organization API key, or a machine part API key.

2. Then, run the following command to create a new location API key:

   viam locations api-key create --location-id <location-id>
    --org-id <org-id> --name <key-name>
   

   Where:

   • location-id is your location ID. You can find your location ID by running viam locations list or by visiting your robot fleet’s page in the Viam app.
   • org-id is an optional organization ID to attach the key to. You can find your organization ID by running viam organizations list or by visiting your organization’s Settings page in the Viam app. If only one organization owns the location, you can omit the parameter. If multiple organizations own the location, you must specify the org-id explicitly.
   • key-name is an optional name for your API key. If omitted, a name will be auto-generated based on your login info and the current time.

The command will return a key id and a key value. You will need both to authenticate.

Once created, you can use the location API key to authenticate future CLI sessions or to connect to robots with the SDK. To switch to using a location API key for authentication right away, logout then log back in using viam login api-key.

A location can have multiple API keys.

Create a machine part API key

To use a machine part API key to authenticate your CLI session, you must first create one:

1. First, authenticate your CLI session. If you don’t already have a machine part API key created, authenticate using a personal access token, an organization API key, or a location API key.

2. Then, run the following command to create a new machine part API key:

   viam robots api-key create --robot-id <robot-id> --org-id <org-id> --name <key-name>
   

   Where:

   • robot-id is your machine’s ID. You can find your machine ID by running viam robots list.
   • org-id is an optional organization ID to attach the key to. You can find your organization ID by running viam organizations list or by visiting your organization’s Settings page in the Viam app. If only one organization owns the robot, you can omit the parameter. If multiple organizations own the robot, you must specify the org-id explicitly.
   • key-name is an optional name for your API key. If omitted, a name will be auto-generated based on your login info and the current time.

The command will return a key id and a key value. You will need both to authenticate.

Once created, you can use the machine part API key to authenticate future CLI sessions or to connect to your machine with the SDK. To switch to using a machine part API key for authentication right away, logout then log back in using viam login api-key.

A location can have multiple API keys.

Manage your machines with the Viam CLI

With the Viam CLI installed and authenticated, you can use it to issue commands to your machine fleet or manage custom modules. All Viam CLI commands use the following format:

viam [global options] command [command options] [arguments...]

See the list of commands below.

CLI help

The Viam CLI has a built-in help system that lists all available commands. You can access it at any time by issuing the command:

viam --help

You can also access contextual help by passing the --help flag as a command option for any CLI command, for example:

viam organizations --help

Commands

data

The data command allows you to manage machine data. With it, you can export data in a variety of formats, delete specified data, add or remove images from a dataset and filter a dataset by tags, or configure a database user to enable querying synced tabular data directly in the cloud.

viam data export --destination=<output path> --data-type=<output data type> [...named args]
viam data delete [...named args]
viam data dataset add --dataset-id=<dataset-id> --file-ids=<file-id-or-ids> --location-id=<location-id> --org-id=<org-id> [...named args]
viam data dataset remove --dataset-id=<dataset-id> --file-ids=<file-id-or-ids> --location-id=<location-id> --org-id=<org-id> [...named args]
viam data database configure --org-id=<org-id> --password=<db-user-password>
viam data database hostname --org-id=<org-id>

Examples:

# export tabular data to /home/robot/data for org abc, location 123
viam data export --destination=/home/robot/data --data_type=tabular \
--org-ids=abc --location-ids=123

# export binary data from all orgs and locations, component name myComponent
viam data export --destination=/home/robot/data --data-type=binary \
--component-name myComponent

# add images tagged with the "example" tag between January and October of 2023 to dataset abc
viam data dataset add filter --dataset-id=abc --location-id=123 --org-id=123 --start=2023-01-01T05:00:00.000Z --end=2023-10-01T04:00:00.000Z --tags=example

# configure a database user for the Viam organization's MongoDB Atlas Data
# Federation instance, in order to query tabular data
viam data database configure --org-id=abc --password=my_password123
viam data database hostname --org-id=abc

Command options

Positional arguments: dataset

Named arguments

Using the ids argument

When you use the viam dataset add and viam dataset remove commands, you can specify the image to add or remove using its file id. To work with multiple images at once, you can specify multiple file ids as a comma-separated list. For example, the following adds three images specified by their file ids to the specified dataset:

viam data dataset add ids --dataset-id=abc --location-id=123 --org-id=123 --file-ids=abc,123,def

To find the dataset id of a given dataset, go to the Datasets subtab under the Data tab on the Viam app and select a dataset. The dataset id can be found in the URL of the Viam app window when viewing a given dataset, following the ?id= portion of the URL, resembling abcdef1234567890abcdef12.

To find the file id of a given image, navigate to the Data tab in the Viam app and select your image. Its File ID is shown under the Details subtab that appears on the right.

You cannot use filter arguments, such as --start or --end when using ids.

See Datasets for more information.

Using the filter argument

When you use the viam dataset add and viam dataset remove commands, you can optionally filter by common search criteria to add or remove a specific subset of images based on a search filter. For example, the following adds all images captured between January 1 and October 1, 2023, that have the example tag applied, to the specified dataset:

viam data dataset add filter --dataset-id=abc --org-ids=123 --start=2023-01-01T05:00:00.000Z --end=2023-10-01T04:00:00.000Z --tags=example

To find the dataset id of a given dataset, go to the Datasets subtab under the Data tab on the Viam app and select a dataset. The dataset id can be found in the URL of the Viam app window when viewing a given dataset, following the ?id= portion of the URL, resembling abcdef1234567890abcdef12.

You can also have the filter parameters generated for you using the Filtering pane of the Data tab. Navigate to the Data tab in the Viam app, make your selections from the search parameters under the Filtering pane (such as robot name, start and end time, or tags), and click the Copy export command button. A viam data export command string will be copied to your clipboard that includes the search parameters you selected. You can use the same filter parameters (such as --start, --end, etc) with your viam data database add filter or viam data database remove filter commands, except you would exclude the --data-type and --destination flags, which are specific to viam data export.

You cannot use the --file-ids argument when using filter.

See Datasets for more information.

locations

The locations command allows you to manage the locations that you have access to. With it, you can list available locations, filter locations by organization, or create a new location API key.

viam locations list [<organization id>]

Command options

Positional arguments: api-key

Named arguments

login

The login command helps you authorize your device for CLI usage. See Authenticate.

viam login
viam login api-key --key-id <api-key-uuid> --key <api-key-secret-value>
viam login print-access-token

Use viam login to authenticate using a personal access token, or viam login api-key to authenticate using an organization API key. If you haven’t already, you must create an organization API key first in order to authenticate using one.

Command options

Named arguments

logout

The logout command ends an authenticated CLI session.

viam logout

module

The module command allows to you to manage custom modules This includes:

• Creating a new custom modular resource
• Uploading a new module to the Viam registry
• Updating an existing module in the Viam registry

viam module create --name <module-id> [--org-id <org-id> | --public-namespace <namespace>]
viam module update [--module <path to meta.json>]
viam module upload --version <version> --platform <platform> [--org-id <org-id> | --public-namespace <namespace>] [--module <path to meta.json>] <module-path>

Examples:

# generate metadata for a module named 'my-module' using your organization's public namespace:
viam module create --name 'my-module' --public-namespace 'my-namespace'

# generate metadata for a module named 'my-module' using your organization's organization ID:
viam module create --name 'my-module' --org-id 'abc'

# update an existing module:
viam module update

# upload a new or updated custom module to the Viam registry:
viam module upload --version "1.0.0" --platform "darwin/arm64" packaged-module.tar.gz

See Upload a custom module and Update an existing module for a detailed walkthrough of the viam module commands.

If you update and release your module as part of a continuous integration (CI) workflow, you can also automatically upload new versions of your module on release using a GitHub Action.

Command options

Named arguments

Using the --org-id and --public-namespace arguments

All of the module commands accept either the --org-id or --public-namespace argument.

• Use the --public-namespace argument to supply the namespace of your organization, suitable for uploading your module to the Viam registry and sharing with other users.
• Use the --org-id to provide your organization ID instead, suitable for sharing your module privately within your organization.

You may use either argument for the viam module create command, but must use --public-namespace for the update and upload commands when uploading as a public module ("visibility": "public") to the Viam registry.

Using the --platform argument

The --platform argument accepts one of the following architectures:

You can use the uname -m command on your computer or board to determine its system architecture.

The viam module upload command only supports one platform argument at a time. If you would like to upload your module with support for multiple platforms, you must run a separate viam module upload command for each platform. Use the same version number when running multiple upload commands of the same module code if only the platform support differs.

If you specify a platform that includes any (such as any, any/amd64, or linux/any), a machine that deploys your module will select the most restrictive architecture from the ones you have provided for your module. For example, if you upload your module with support for any/amd64 and then also upload with support for linux/amd64, a machine running the linux/amd64 architecture deploys the linux/amd64 version, while a machine running the darwin/amd64 architecture deploys the any/amd64 version.

The Viam registry page for your module displays the platforms your module supports for each version you have uploaded.

If you are using the build logs command, the --platform argument instead restricts the logs returned by the command to only those build jobs that match the specified platform.

Using the --version argument

The --version argument accepts a valid semver 2.0 version (example: 1.0.0). You set an initial version for your custom module with your first viam module upload command for that module, and can later increment the version with subsequent viam module upload commands.

Once your module is uploaded, users can select which version of your module to use on their machine from your module’s page on the Viam registry. Users can choose to pin to a specific patch version, permit upgrades within major release families or only within minor releases, or permit continuous updates.

When you update a module configuration and then upload it, the entrypoint for that module defined in the meta.json file is associated with the specific --version for that upload. Therefore, you are able to change the entrypoint file from version to version, if desired.

Upload validation

When you upload a module, the command performs basic validation of your module to check for common errors. The following criteria are checked for every upload:

• The module must exist on the filesystem at the path provided to the upload command.
• The entry point file specified in the meta.json file must exist on the filesystem at the path specified.
• The entry point file must be executable.
• If the module is provided to the upload command as a compressed archive, the archive must have the .tar.gz or .tgz extension.

The meta.json file

When uploading a custom module, the Viam registry tracks your module’s metadata in a meta.json file. This file is created for you when you run the viam module create command, with the module_id field pre-populated based on the --name you provided to create. If you later make changes to this file, you can register those changes with the Viam registry by using the viam module update command.

The meta.json file includes the following configuration options:

For example, the following represents the configuration of an example my-module module in the acme namespace:

{
  "module_id": "acme:my-module",
  "visibility": "public",
  "url": "https://github.com/acme-co-example/my-module",
  "description": "An example custom module.",
  "models": [
    {
      "api": "rdk:component:generic",
      "model": "acme:demo:my-model"
    }
  ],
  "entrypoint": "dist/main"
}

See Upload a custom module and Update an existing module for a detailed walkthrough of the viam module commands.

See Modular resources for a conceptual overview of modules and the modular resource system at Viam.

Using the build subcommand

You can use the module build start or module build local commands to build your custom module according to the build steps you specify in your meta.json file:

• Use build start to build or compile your module on a cloud build host that might offer additional platform support than you have access to locally.
• Use build local to quickly test that your module builds or compiles as expected on your local hardware.

To configure your module’s build steps, add a build object to your meta.json file like the following:

"build": {
  "setup": "./setup.sh",                  // optional - command to install your build dependencies
  "build": "./build.sh",                  // command that will build your module
  "path" : "dist/archive.tar.gz",         // optional - path to your built module
                                          // (passed to the 'viam module upload' command)
  "arch" : ["linux/amd64", "linux/arm64"] // architecture(s) to build for
}

#!/bin/bash
set -e
UNAME=$(uname -s)

if [ "$UNAME" = "Linux" ]
then
    echo "Installing venv on Linux"
    sudo apt-get install -y python3-venv
fi
if [ "$UNAME" = "Darwin" ]
then
    echo "Installing venv on Darwin"
    brew install python3-venv
fi

python3 -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
pip3 install -r requirements.txt

#!/bin/bash
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
python3 -m PyInstaller --onefile --hidden-import="googleapiclient" src/main.py
tar -czvf dist/archive.tar.gz dist/main

#!/bin/bash
set -e
UNAME=$(uname -s)

if [ "$UNAME" = "Linux" ]
then
    echo "Installing venv on Linux"
    sudo apt-get install -y python3-venv
fi
if [ "$UNAME" = "Darwin" ]
then
    echo "Installing venv on Darwin"
    brew install python3-venv
fi

python3 -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
python3 -m PyInstaller --onefile --hidden-import="googleapiclient" src/main.py
tar -czvf dist/archive.tar.gz dist/main

For example, the following extends the my-module meta.json file from the previous section using the single build file approach, adding a new build object to control its build parameters when used with module build start or module build local:

{
  "module_id": "acme:my-module",
  "visibility": "public",
  "url": "https://github.com/acme-co-example/my-module",
  "description": "An example custom module.",
  "models": [
    {
      "api": "rdk:component:generic",
      "model": "acme:demo:my-model"
    }
  ],
  "build": {
    "setup": "./setup.sh",
    "build": "./build.sh",
    "path": "dist/archive.tar.gz",
    "arch": ["linux/amd64", "linux/arm64"]
  },
  "entrypoint": "dist/main"
}

When you initiate a build job using either start or local, the command returns the build ID of your job. Provide that build ID to the module build logs command to show the relevant build logs for that build.

For example, use the following to initiate a build, and return the build logs as soon as it completes:

viam module build logs --wait --id $(viam module build start --version "0.1.2")

To list all in-progress builds and their build status, use the following command:

viam module build list

organizations

The organizations command allows you to list the organizations your authenticated session belongs to, and to create a new organization API key.

viam organizations list
viam organizations api-key create --org-id <org-id> [--name <key-name>]

See create an organization API key for more information.

Command options

Positional arguments: api-key

Named arguments

robots

The robots command allows you to manage your machine fleet. This includes:

• Listing all machines that you have access to, filtered by organization and location.
• Creating API keys to grant access to a specific machine
• Retrieving machine and machine part status
• Retrieving machine and machine part logs
• Controlling a machine by issuing component and service commands
• Accessing your machine with a secure shell (when this feature is enabled)

viam robots list
viam robots status --organization=<org name> --location=<location name> --robot=<machine id>
viam robots logs --organization=<org name> --location=<location name> --robot=<machine id> [...named args]
viam robots part status --organization=<org name> --location=<location name> --robot=<machine id>
viam robots part run --organization=<org name> --location=<location name> --robot=<machine id> [--stream] --data <meth>
viam robots part shell --organization=<org name> --location=<location name> --robot=<machine id>

Examples:

# list all machines you have access to
viam robots list

# get machine status
viam robots status  --robot 82c608a-1be9-46a5-968d-bad3a8a6daa --organization "Robot's Org" --location myLoc

# stream error level logs from a machine part
viam robots part logs --robot 82c608a-1be9-46a5-968d-bad3a8a6daa \
--organization "Robot's Org" --location myLoc --part "myrover-main" --tail true

# stream classifications from a machine part every 500 milliseconds from the Viam Vision Service with classifier "stuff_detector"
viam robots part run --robot 82c608a-1be9-46a5-968d-bad3a8a6daa \
--organization "Robot's Org" --location myLoc --part "myrover-main" --stream 500ms \
--data '{"name": "vision", "camera_name": "cam", "classifier_name": "stuff_detector", "n":1}' \
viam.service.vision.v1.VisionService.GetClassificationsFromCamera

Command options

Positional arguments: api-key

Positional arguments: part

Named arguments

Using the --stream and --data arguments

Issuing the part command with the run positional argument allows you to run component and service (resource) commands for a selected machine part.

The --data parameter is required and you must specify both:

• Method arguments in JSON format
• A resource method (in the form of the protobuf package and method path)

The format of what is passed to the --data argument is:

'{"arg1": "val1"}' <protobuf path>

You can find the protobuf path for the Viam package and method in the Viam api package by navigating to the component or service directory and then clicking on the resource file. The protobuf path is the package name.

For example:

'{"name": "vision", "camera_name": "cam", "classifier_name": "my_classifier", "n":1}' \
viam.service.vision.v1.VisionService.GetClassificationsFromCamera

The --stream argument, when included in the CLI command prior to the --data command, will stream data back at the specified interval.

version

The version command returns the version of the Viam CLI. To update to the latest version of the CLI, run the installation steps again to download and install the latest version.

viam version

whoami

The whoami command returns the Viam user for an authenticated CLI session, or “Not logged in” if there is no authenticated session.

viam whoami

Global options

You can pass global options after the viam CLI keyword with any command.