How to install the Lightdash CLI

The Lightdash CLI is the recommended way to develop your dbt + Lightdash project. It makes development faster and easier, as well as giving you options for building more powerful automation to manage your Lightdash instance.

Before installing Lightdash CLI, you need to have NodeJS/NPM installed on your machine. To check that, run the following command in your terminal:

node -v; npm -v;
# it should print something like:
# v20.8.0
# 8.15.0

Don't have NodeJS/NPM installed in your system?

We recommend installing NodeJS/NPM using NVM (Node Version Manager) which works for POSIX-compliant shells (sh, dash, ksh, zsh, bash on these platforms: unix, macOS, and windows WSL)

Open your terminal and run the command below to install NVM (Node Version Manager) to your system.

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.2/install.sh | bash
# or
wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.2/install.sh | bash

Restart terminal and install NodeJS by running

nvm install --lts

Check that NodeJS is installed by running

node -v

Running the command above should output something like 20.8.0 which means you’ve succesfully installed NodeJS/NPM

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Alternatively, you can install NodeJS/NPM via your preferred package manager.

Run the following on your terminal to install the Lightdash CLI.

npm install -g @lightdash/cli

If you get an npm ERR! code EACCES error while installing the Lightdash CLI, follow this guide to resolve it.

Once you’ve installed the CLI tool, you’ll want to authenticate it

Check out the guide on authenticating your CLI tool (login and setup an active project).