Getting Started

Link Your Account

First, you’ll want to set up a connection to your Yext account and create a credential. A credential is a profile that defines the context - environment and account that you are working in. If you work with multiple Yext accounts, you’ll be able to easily switch between your credentials without having to provide your account ID.

To get started, you’ll need to Initialize your Account by running the following command:

yext init

If you would like to use the sandbox environment (e.g., for a playground account), you’ll want to set your “universe” to sandbox using the u flag. Ex:

yext init -u sandbox

Unless you already have a credential set up, when prompted select Create new credentials.

? Please select one of the following options Create new credentials

Next, you’ll need to input your account ID. You can find your Yext Account ID by looking in Account Settings > Personal Settings in the Account Information table or by pulling the ID out of the URL of your account after the /s/.

For example:

? Enter account ID (If you do not have a Yext account, please sign up at https://www.yext.com/signup and get the acconut ID from the URL '/s/<account ID>/...')
> 12345

This will take you to the browser. Finish up by authenticating into your account and returning to the terminal when done.

Congrats, Now you’re ready to start using the CLI!

Exploring Commands & Using the Help Flag

Now that you’re set up with the Yext CLI, find out what you can do by running the command:

yext

This will output a quick how-to guide and a list of available commands in the CLI. You should get a response like this:

$ yext

This is a beta version of the Yext Command Line Interface

yext is a command line interface to configure Yext services

The first parameter is the name of the top-level command group (or, in a few special cases, top-level commands)
Each command group itself consists of commands, additional command groups, or both.
These are specified left to right until a command is reached.
Following the command are positional arguments. The meaningful positional arguments depend only on the command.
Finally, flag arguments are specified, which can include both command-specific flags (like --comprehensive) or flags that have a global meaning (such as --project). These can be either booleans or have values.

For Example:
yext init
 - initializes the yext configuration

Usage:
  yext [command]

Available Commands:
  completion    Generate completion script
  help          Help about any command
  info          Print current configuration context
  init          Create or modify configurations
  resources     Manage project-wide configuration as code
  service-users Manage prompt-less interaction with the Yext CLI
  version       Display CLI version

Flags:
  -h, --help   help for yext

Use "yext [command] --help" for more information about a command.

Getting Help

If you want to learn more about a command, simply run the command with the help flag (–help, or -h) to get more information about that command group and its fundamental operations.

Let’s try it with yext resources:

yext resources --help

You should see a response like this:

This is a beta version of the Yext Command Line Interface

The resources command group provides built-in, cross-service commands that enable project-wide configuration to be managed as code.

The fundamental operations are:

pull - pulling/fetching configuration from the services in a resource-oriented model and storing them in code files

apply - making the configuration on the server match the state defined in source files. (This includes diff with the use of dry-run).

Usage:
  yext resources [command]

Available Commands:
  apply       Apply configurations from source directory
  diff        Diff local resources against resources in Yext
  pull        Pull configurations to destination directory

Flags:
  -h, --help   help for resources

Use "yext resources [command] --help" for more information about a command.

The resulting help text tells us that resources is a command group, lists the available commands in the group, and describes how to get further help on any command within the group.

Using the help flag is a great way to learn about the Yext CLI and view documentation in-line. You can also always come back to this Yext CLI reference page for more detailed documentation.

If you run into an error while running a command in the Yext CLI, a good place to start is checking out the help text for that command. You might be missing a required option, and the help text will provide that information. If you’re still stuck, we recommend posting in our Community.

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