CLI Commands Reference

This page documents all available FTL CLI commands, their flags, and usage patterns.

Commands Overview

• ftl setup - Initialize server with required dependencies
• ftl build - Build and prepare application images
• ftl deploy - Deploy application to configured servers
• ftl logs - Retrieve and stream logs from services
• ftl tunnels - Create SSH tunnels to remote dependencies

Setup

Initializes a server with required dependencies and configurations.

ftl setup

Description

The setup command performs the following operations:

• Installs Docker and required system packages
• Configures firewall rules
• Sets up user permissions
• Initializes Docker networks
• Configures registry authentication if using registry-based deployment

Example

ftl setup

Build

Builds and prepares Docker images for deployment.

ftl build [flags]

Flags

Flag	Description
--skip-push	Skip pushing images to registry (only applies to registry-based deployment)

Description

The build command handles image preparation based on your configuration:

For Direct SSH Transfer (Default)

• Builds images locally
• Uses custom layer caching
• Prepares images for direct transfer

For Registry-based Deployment

• Builds images locally
• Tags images according to configuration
• Pushes to specified registry (unless --skip-push is used)

Examples

# Build all services (using direct SSH transfer)
ftl build

# Build all services but skip registry push
ftl build --skip-push

Deploy

Deploys the application to configured servers.

ftl deploy

Description

The deploy command performs these operations:

• Connects to configured servers via SSH
• Pulls/transfers required Docker images
• Performs zero-downtime container replacement
• Configures Nginx reverse proxy
• Manages SSL/TLS certificates via ACME
• Runs health checks
• Cleans up unused resources

Example

ftl deploy

Logs

Retrieves logs from deployed services.

ftl logs [service] [flags]

Arguments

Argument	Description
service	(Optional) Name of the service to fetch logs from

Flags

Flag	Description	Default
-f, --follow	Stream logs in real-time	false
-n, --tail <lines>	Number of lines to show from the end	100 (if -f is used)

Examples

# Fetch logs from all services
ftl logs

# Stream logs from a specific service
ftl logs my-app -f

# Fetch last 50 lines from all services
ftl logs -n 50

# Fetch logs from specific service with custom tail size
ftl logs my-app -n 150

Tunnels

Creates SSH tunnels to remote dependencies.

ftl tunnels [flags]

Flags

Flag	Description
-s, --server <server>	(Optional) Specify server name/index for multi-server setups

Description

The tunnels command:

• Establishes SSH tunnels to dependency services
• Enables local access to remote services
• Maintains concurrent tunnel connections
• Supports multiple server configurations

Examples

# Establish tunnels to all dependency ports
ftl tunnels

# Connect to specific server
ftl tunnels --server my-project.example.com

Environment Variables

All commands respect environment variables defined in your ftl.yaml configuration. Variables can be:

• Required: ${VAR_NAME}
• Optional with default: ${VAR_NAME:-default_value}

For detailed information about environment variable handling, see the Environment Variables reference.