The Platform.sh CLI is ready to Go(lang)

The developer experience just got so much better with the latest Platform.sh CLI release. Designed and engineered to help developers manage their daily work environments more efficiently, this incredible tool is ready to Go for our entire developer community, becoming language independent with no need to install PHP, and embracing the distribution standards.

With the Platform.sh CLI, developers can easily use and manage their projects directly from their terminal. 

Evolving with our community

Originally our CLI tool was written in PHP and strongly integrated in the PHP ecosystem. However, Platform.sh now supports multiple languages and stacks including Python, Node.js, Java, Ruby, etc (complete list).. That meant one thing - it was time to go back to the (code) drawing board and rewrite our CLI to make it universal. It led us to the version 4.0 of the CLI: complete with more languages and fewer dependencies. But, how did we do it?

How we created the tool

We wrote our new CLI using Go with 100% backwards compatibility in mind throughout the process. By embedding the “legacy PHP CLI'', we’ve ensured that all commands remain the same, but now the tool serves more languages and more people, more efficiently, without the need to install PHP. Delivering not just a new version of the same old tool, but a path to the future of website and application management for developers. 

What will the CLI tool change?

There are two key changes which the CLI tool will deliver to our users:

No need to install PHP on your local environment

The main reason we started this journey was to stop requiring PHP, as non-PHP developers were very explicit that this was adding friction and was causing them headaches! We have listened and can now guarantee 100% backward compatibility of all your existing scripts using Platform.sh CLI, which embeds the old one, along with PHP itself, without restricting its users to PHP-only projects.

More standard distribution to install and upgrade the CLI

From now on, we will be distributing the CLI using standard distribution channels, specific to each operating system: HomeBrew for macOS and Linux, Scoop for Windows, as well as regular APK, Deb, and RPM files for Linux distros.

Ready to try it out?

The release candidate of the new Platform.sh CLI — 4.0.0-rc.1 (at the time of this writing) — is now publicly available and ready for testing. Come join the party! Your feedback really means a lot to us so why not test it out for yourself and share your thoughts with our team? 

You can easily install using Homebrew (macOS and Linux)  as fast as typing this command in your terminal:

brew install platformsh/tap/platformsh-cli

On Windows, Scoop is the preferred channel:

scoop bucket add platformsh https://github.com/platformsh/homebrew-tap.git
scoop install platform

You can also  download the binaries from our Github repository.

How to report bugs or suggest improvements?

If you encounter any issues along the way or want to suggest new or improved features, please report them on our GitHub repository.

You can also initiate a conversation about the CLI or any platform.sh related topic on our public slack channel or via our community website.