vendure-cli

Vendure CLI

The Vendure CLI (@vendure/cli, binary vendure) drives the full lifecycle of a Vendure project. Use it instead of hand-writing boilerplate or guessing build and migration commands.

Detecting a Vendure project

Run CLI commands from a Vendure server package root, or from a monorepo root that contains a Vendure package under packages/, apps/, libs/, services/, or modules/.

dev, build, and start resolve the project directory from the current working directory if it contains @vendure/core, or by scanning those monorepo package directories. add, migrate, schema, and config-dependent doctor checks analyze the TypeScript project from process.cwd() and require a tsconfig*.json there, so do not assume they work from arbitrary nested subdirectories.

Running the CLI

@vendure/cli is normally a project dependency, so run it through the project's package manager — do not assume npx. Detect the package manager from the lockfile in the project root or workspace root and use the matching runner:

Lockfile in project root	Package manager	Run the CLI with
bun.lock / bun.lockb	bun	bunx vendure <command>
pnpm-lock.yaml	pnpm	pnpm exec vendure <command>
yarn.lock	yarn	yarn vendure <command>
package-lock.json	npm	npx vendure <command>
none found	npm (fallback)	npx vendure <command>

If @vendure/cli is installed globally, call vendure <command> directly. List all commands with vendure --help.

The commands/*.md reference files write examples with a bare vendure … — prefix each one with the runner for the detected package manager.

Note: CLI scaffolding that installs packages currently detects yarn.lock, package-lock.json, and pnpm-lock.yaml internally, then falls back to npm. It does not use Bun for those generated dependency installs.

Commands

Command	Use it to…	Reference
dev	Run server + worker + dashboard in development mode	commands/dev.md
build	Compile the project for production	commands/build.md
start	Run an already-built project	commands/start.md
add	Scaffold a plugin, entity, service, API extension, etc.	commands/add.md
migrate	Generate, run or revert database migrations	commands/migrate.md
schema	Generate a GraphQL schema file from the Admin/Shop API	commands/schema.md
doctor	Diagnose project, dependency, config, schema and DB health	commands/doctor.md
codemod	Run automated code transforms (e.g. UI migrations)	commands/codemod.md
plugins	List / enable / disable CLI plugins for the project	commands/plugins.md

To diagnose a broken project, use the vendure-troubleshooting skill (skills/vendure-troubleshooting/).

Installed CLI plugins (packages that declare vendure.cliPlugin) may add commands or replace built-ins such as dev. Prefer vendure --help in the project to see the effective command set. See the developer CLI guide section “Extending the CLI”.

Critical rules for agents

1. Never hardcode npx. Resolve the runner from the project's lockfile — see "Running the CLI" above (bunx, pnpm exec, yarn, npx).
2. Prompt-capable commands (add, migrate, schema, codemod, plugins) need explicit flags/arguments from agents. Run them with explicit inputs so they take the non-interactive path; otherwise the process rejects prompt-only invocations in non-interactive environments. Set VENDURE_CLI_NON_INTERACTIVE=true when calling the CLI from an agent so prompt-only invocations fail fast with examples instead of waiting on a terminal prompt. The exact non-interactive flags are in each command's reference file. For CLI plugins use vendure plugins --json / vendure plugins add <pkg> / vendure plugins remove <pkg> — there is no blanket-approve flag.
3. dev, start, and build --watch are long-running processes. Do not run them just to "check" something. Run them only when the user asks, and prefer running them in the background.
4. Production-only installs may not include @vendure/cli. Generated apps keep the CLI as a dev dependency, so after pruning dev dependencies, start compiled server/worker entrypoints with node ./dist/... or make the CLI a production dependency explicitly.
5. Read the relevant commands/*.md file before building a command. Valid targets and flags differ per command (e.g. start has no dashboard target; --inspect only applies to dev).