CLI Reference

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This document is for an older version of Crossplane.

This document applies to Crossplane version v1.16 and not to the latest release v1.18.

The Crossplane CLI helps simplify some development and administration aspects of Crossplane.

The Crossplane CLI includes:

tools to build, install, update and push Crossplane Packages
standalone Composition Function testing and rendering without the need to access a Kubernetes cluster running Crossplane
troubleshoot Crossplane Compositions, Composite Resources and Managed Resources

Installing the CLI

The Crossplane CLI is a single standalone binary with no external dependencies.

Note

Install the Crossplane CLI on a user’s computer.

Most Crossplane CLI commands are independent of Kubernetes and don’t require access to a Crossplane pod.

To download the latest version for your CPU architecture with the Crossplane install script.

1curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crossplane/crossplane/main/install.sh" | sh

The script detects your CPU architecture and downloads the latest stable release.

If you don’t want to run shell script you can manually download a binary from the Crossplane releases repository at https://releases.crossplane.io/stable/current/bin

Important

The CLI is named crank in the release repository. Download this file.

The crossplane binary is the Kubernetes Crossplane pod image.

Move the binary to a location in your $PATH, for example /usr/local/bin.

Download different Crossplane CLI versions or different release branches with the XP_CHANNEL and XP_VERSION environmental variables.

By default the CLI installs from the XP_CHANNEL named stable and the XP_VERSION of current, matching the most recent stable release.

For example, to install CLI version v1.14.0 add XP_VERSION=v1.14.0 to the download script curl command:

curl -sL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crossplane/crossplane/main/install.sh" | XP_VERSION=v1.14.0 sh