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Login

The CLI uses browser-based OAuth login by default, making authentication quick and easy.

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Basic login

lightdash login analytics
This opens your browser to authenticate. Once authorized, you’re logged in and ready to use the CLI.

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Flexible URL formats

The CLI accepts your instance URL in multiple formats - all of these work: 
# Just your subdomain (recommended for Lightdash Cloud)
lightdash login analytics

# Full domain without protocol
lightdash login analytics.lightdash.cloud

# Full URL with protocol
lightdash login https://analytics.lightdash.cloud

# Any URL from your Lightdash instance (useful for copying from browser)
lightdash login https://analytics.lightdash.cloud/projects/abc123/dashboards
For Lightdash Cloud users, you can simply use your subdomain (e.g., analytics if your instance is at analytics.lightdash.cloud). For self-hosted instances, you can use the full domain without the https:// prefix - it’s assumed automatically.

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Re-authenticate to a previous instance

Once you’ve logged in, you can re-authenticate without specifying the URL: 
lightdash login
This uses your previously saved instance URL.
If you prefer to use email and password instead of browser-based OAuth:
lightdash login analytics --no-oauth
You’ll be prompted to enter your email and password.
If you use single sign-on (SSO) in the browser, login with a personal access token.First, create a new personal access token in the UI by going to Settings > Personal Access Tokens.
Then, run the following command:
lightdash login analytics --token
You can use the following environment variables to authenticate yourself on each command:
  • LIGHTDASH_API_KEY a personal access token you can generate in the app under the user settings
  • LIGHTDASH_URL address for your running Lightdash instance
  • LIGHTDASH_PROXY_AUTHORIZATION if your Lightdash instance is behind a proxy like Cloud IAP you can set here Proxy-Authentication header value
Example:
LIGHTDASH_API_KEY=946fedb74003405646867dcacf1ad345 LIGHTDASH_URL="https://analytics.lightdash.cloud" LIGHTDASH_PROXY_AUTHORIZATION="Bearer <JWT_TOKEN>" lightdash preview

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Set active project

When you login you’ll be asked to set an active project. Your active project is just the one that you’re working on/developing in. Your organization might just have one project, so that makes your decision easy! You can change your active project by running: 
lightdash config set-project
Or you can use the LIGHTDASH_PROJECT environment variable to indicate what project UUID the command should use. Example: 
LIGHTDASH_PROJECT="3675b69e-8324-4110-bdca-059031aa8da3" lightdash deploy

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Now that you’ve logged in, you’re ready to use the CLI

You can see all of the actions available on the CLI by typing this in your terminal: 
lightdash
Some of our favourites are: