Install atomist-cli with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• @atomist
• atomist

Project history

The official README defines the Atomist CLI as a unified command-line tool for interacting with Atomist services. The package is a Node.js command distributed as the npm package @atomist/cli and, for macOS users, as the Homebrew formula atomist-cli.

The changelog shows an active 2018 to 2019 release train around the Atomist 1.0 milestone. Early versions added install messaging, Windows fixes, workspace login/configuration, Homebrew formula support, SDM-related commands, GraphQL schema fetching, and Kubernetes commands. Release 1.8.0 in September 2019 deprecated or removed some outdated commands while adding debug/dev flags and changing Kubernetes command naming.

Adoption history

Adoption was tied to Atomist users rather than general Unix users. The README says users needed an Atomist workspace to interact with the Atomist API, and it points developers to Atomist's getting-started and developer prerequisites docs.

The CLI mattered most inside Atomist's ecosystem: configuring API keys and workspaces, starting local Software Delivery Machines, fetching GraphQL schema for API clients, and installing Kubernetes utilities into clusters. Homebrew support made it feel like a normal macOS developer tool even though its useful surface depended on Atomist's hosted services.

How it is used

The README documents `atomist config` for local configuration, `atomist kube --environment=MY_CLUSTER` for Kubernetes utilities, `atomist gql-fetch` for downloading a workspace GraphQL schema, and `atomist --help` for command discovery.

The official source writes an API key and workspace IDs into the user configuration after validating the key and optionally creating one through an Atomist browser login flow. In practice, the CLI was a bootstrap and glue tool: install it, authenticate, connect a workspace, then use it to drive Atomist SDM and platform workflows.

Why package nerds care

Atomist CLI is interesting to package nerds because it is a Homebrew-packaged Node CLI for a hosted developer automation service. The formula installed a local command, but the command's value came from remote Atomist APIs, which is a pattern common to modern DevOps CLIs.

Its changelog also captures a short, intense ecosystem period: milestone releases in 2018, rapid SemVer increments in 2019, and then little public release activity after the 1.8.x line. That makes it a snapshot of the Atomist SDM era rather than a broadly adopted general-purpose Unix utility.

Timeline

• 2018: Early 0.6.x releases added install messaging and Windows command fixes.
• 2018-08: 1.0.0-M.1 aligned the CLI with Atomist 1.0 milestone dependencies.
• 2018-10: 1.0.0-RC.2 added Homebrew formula template and bash completion.
• 2018-12: 1.1.0 added login and config commands to connect to a workspace.
• 2019-03: 1.2.0 added SDM extension-pack install, provider/workspace creation, and Kubernetes SDM deployment changes.
• 2019-09: 1.8.0 added dev/debug flags, changed Kubernetes command naming, and removed or deprecated outdated commands.

Related projects

• Related official Atomist projects include atomist/atomist-sdm, atomist/sdm-local, and @atomist/automation-client, which the CLI used to configure and run Software Delivery Machine workflows.

Sources

• Official CHANGELOG.md.
• Official README.
• Official lib/config.ts.
• Official package.json.