CLI Usage

The portbay CLI is a thin command-line interface over the same Rust core as the Tauri app.

Connection Model

The CLI expects a PortBay daemon to be running. In the current build, that means the Tauri app should be open. The CLI reads the registry and talks to Process Compose through the discovered runtime port.

Common Tasks

portbay list
portbay status
portbay status marketing-site
portbay start marketing-site
portbay logs marketing-site --limit 100
portbay open marketing-site
portbay stop marketing-site
portbay stop --all

JSON Output

Use --json for machine-readable output:

portbay --json list
portbay --json status marketing-site

Registry Override

Use --registry when testing against an isolated registry file:

portbay --registry /tmp/portbay-registry.json list

Process Compose Port Override

Use --pc-port only when testing a non-standard daemon port:

portbay --pc-port 7432 status

Shell Completions

The CLI generates its own completion scripts, so they always match the subcommands and flags your build actually has:

portbay completions bash
portbay completions zsh
portbay completions fish

Every release CLI archive (portbay-cli-<version>-<target>.tar.gz) also ships them pre-generated in a completions/ directory next to the binary, so you can install them without running the CLI first.

Install them where your shell looks for completions:

# bash — needs bash-completion installed
portbay completions bash > "$(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion.d/portbay"

# zsh — anywhere on your $fpath, as a file named _portbay
portbay completions zsh > ~/.zfunc/_portbay   # then: fpath=(~/.zfunc $fpath); compinit

# fish
portbay completions fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/portbay.fish

Regenerate after upgrading PortBay — a completion script from an older build will not offer newer subcommands.

Building from source? scripts/generate-completions.sh writes all three at once (--bin to point at a specific binary, --out for the target directory). It refuses to write anything if the CLI is missing or emits nothing, because an empty completion file installs successfully and completes nothing.