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DOCS-3295: Add profiles #4318

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Jul 17, 2025
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DOCS-3295: Add profiles #4318

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DOCS-3295: Add profiles
npentrel May 19, 2025
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Update docs/dev/tools/cli.md
npentrel Jul 14, 2025
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npentrel Jul 14, 2025
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23 changes: 18 additions & 5 deletions docs/dev/tools/cli.md
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Expand Up @@ -107,7 +107,7 @@ to later update the Viam CLI tool on macOS, run `brew upgrade viam`.

Once you have [installed the Viam CLI](#install), you must authenticate your CLI session with Viam in order to run CLI commands.

You can authenticate your CLI session using either a personal access token, or an organization, location, or machine part API key.
You can authenticate your CLI session using a personal access token, a profile, or an organization, location, or machine part API key.

- To authenticate your CLI session using a personal access token:

Expand All @@ -133,6 +133,19 @@ An authenticated session is valid for 24 hours, unless you explicitly [log out](

After the session expires or you log out, you must re-authenticate to use the CLI again.

## CLI profiles

You can also authenticate your CLI session with profiles which allow you to switch between using different privileges.
To create a profile, run the following command:

```sh {class="command-line" data-prompt="$"}
viam profiles add --profile-name=default --key-id=<api-key-id> --key=<api-key>
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I would expect to see a new section about the profiles command -- there should be update, add, list, and remove subcommands. Are we deliberately omitting that section?

FYI, when I try to run list with no profiles specified, I see the following output:

Error: Unexpected end of JSON input

It might be worth checking to see if this happens on your machine as well -- if so, we should probably let engineering know.

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that bug just got fixed so should be gone next week!

```

To use a profile to authenticate a command, pass the `--profile` flag.
By default, the Viam CLI does not use a profile.
To use a specific profile by default, set the environment variable `VIAM_CLI_PROFILE_NAME` to the profile name.

### Create an organization API key

To use an API key to authenticate your CLI session, you must create one.
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -1626,8 +1639,8 @@ You can pass global options after the `viam` CLI keyword with any command.
<!-- prettier-ignore -->
| Global option | Description |
| ------------- | ----------- |
| `--debug` | Enable debug logging (default: false). |
| `--disable-profiles`, `disable-profile` | Disable usage of [profiles](#profiles), falling back to default (false) behavior. |
| `--help`, `-h` | Show help (default: false). |
| `--debug` | Enable debug logging. Default: `false`. |
| `--disable-profiles`, `disable-profile` | Disable usage of [profiles](#profiles), falling back to default (false) behavior. Default: `false`. |
| `--help`, `-h` | Show help. Default: `false`. |
| `--profile` | Specify a particular [profile](#profiles) for the current command. |
| `--quiet`, `-q` | Suppress warnings (default: false). |
| `--quiet`, `-q` | Suppress warnings. Default: `false` |
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