Get Started With DX CLI

What Value Does DX CLI bring?

This guide walks you through the one-time setup and configuration of DX CLI within your organization.

🔥 Prerequisites

DX CLI currently supports Windows operating system as it relies on .NET libraries available only in Windows PowerShell 5.1 (not in PowerShell Core). Linux support will be added in a future release.

Before getting started, make sure the following required components are installed and configured on your users’ environments. These prerequisites are necessary to run DX CLI.

• Git
  Git must be installed, and its execution path must be included in the users’ PATH environment variable. To verify, run the following commands in a command prompt:

  where git
  echo %PATH%

• Windows PowerShell 5.1
  Available by default on Windows. DX CLI requires Windows PowerShell 5.1 to run in FullLanguage mode. You can verify the current mode by running the following command in a PowerShell session:

  $ExecutionContext.SessionState.LanguageMode

📖 Setup Git Repositories

Create Empty Repositories

Start by creating empty repositories into your organization’s internal source control platform (e.g., GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps, or Bitbucket). You can name them however you like, as long as you make a clear distinction between them:

Repository	Usage	Is Mandatory
dx-installer	A repository used to store users' installation script. Your users will use it to install DX CLI on their Windows environment.	true
dx-core	A repository used to store DX CLI core binaries.	true
dx-packages	A repository used to store all custom configuration scripts your organization will create.	true
dx-analytics	A repository used to store DX CLI users’ usage analytics.	false

Copy DX CLI Source Code Into Your Repositories

• Copy the source code from the main branch of dx-installer on GitHub into your organization’s dx-installer repository.
• Copy the source code from the main branch of dx-core on GitHub into your organization’s dx-core repository.

dx-packages and dx-analytics repositories remain empty for now.

⚙️ Update dx-installer Settings File

After copying the repositories in previous step, from your dx-installer repository, open the settings.json file and update the following fields:

Field	Type	Is Mandatory	Description
emailDomain	string	true	The email domain of your organization.
ldapDirectory	string	false	Enables LDAP directory integration. DX CLI will retrieve the user’s name and email from the LDAP directory to configure Git (for example, LDAP://startdevx.com). If this is not set, DX CLI will default to the local system user information.
useProxy	boolean	false	If set to true, DX CLI will attempt to detect your organization proxy and automatically set the HTTP_PROXY and HTTPS_PROXY environment variables with the proxy URL.
repositories.core	string	true	The Git clone URL for your organization's dx-core repository.
repositories.packages	string	true	The Git clone URL for your organization's dx-packages repository.
repositories.analytics	string	false	If you have created an empty dx-analytics repository, enter the Git clone URL for your organization's dx-analytics repository. Make sure your organization’s users have write access to this repository so they can push data to the default branch.

✅ Congratulations! DX CLI Is Now Ready To Be Used Within Your Organization

Users in your organization can now install DX CLI on their Windows environment by following the instructions in the README.md file of your organization's dx-installer repository.

⏭️ Next Step: Create Your First Package

DX CLI without packages is an empty shell. Create your first package by following the instructions in the README.md file of your organization's dx-core repository.

🪙 Credits

DX CLI is an open-source solution available on GitHub, crafted by Start DevX organization.