Cloud Commands

The Nx Cloud command line interface provides various commands to connect and interact with Nx Cloud, manage distributed task execution, and handle authentication. Below is a complete reference for all available commands and their options.

Available Commands

`nx-cloud login`

Provision a local personal access token to access Nx Cloud features. This will open your browser to the Nx Cloud application and after signing in will generate a personal access token and save it in a configuration file locally called nxcloud.ini.

This command is the same as running nx login.

Usage:

npx nx-cloud login [nxCloudUrl]

Options

Option	Type	Description	Default
`nxCloudUrl`	string	The URL of the Nx Cloud instance to connect to	`https://cloud.nx.app`

We look for this file at the following locations:

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nxcloud/nxcloud.ini
$HOME/config/nxcloud/nxcloud.ini
$HOME/.nxcloud.ini

If we don't find an existing config file, we create one at $HOME/config/nxcloud/nxcloud.ini

We look for this file within the %LOCALAPPDATA%/nxcloud directory and if it does not exist, we will create a new nxcloud.ini file there.

The format of this file is as follows:

[https://cloud\.nx\.app]
personalAccessToken=SOME_ACCESS_TOKEN

If you have access to multiple instances of the Nx Cloud application (e.g. self-hosted Enterprise and our managed instance), each instance will be saved to this file under its URL.

`nx-cloud logout`

Revoke a personal access token from your local environment. This will remove the personal access token from the locally initialized configuration file and also invalidate the token from the Nx Cloud application. You will be prompted to remove a single token or all tokens from your local environment.

Usage:

npx nx-cloud logout

`nx-cloud configure`

To provision more than one personal access token for multiple contexts (e.g. home and work machines) you can use the personal access tokens page under your Nx Cloud profile. To save a personal access token to your local nxcloud.ini file without needing to edit the file yourself call nx-cloud configure.

Usage:

npx nx-cloud configure

Options

Option	Type	Description	Default
`--personalAccessToken`	string	The personal access token to configure
`--nx-cloud-url`	string	The URL of the Nx Cloud instance	`https://cloud.nx.app`

Examples

npx nx-cloud configure --personalAccessToken=SOME_ACCESS_TOKEN

To configure multiple tokens for different instances of the Nx Cloud app:

npx nx-cloud configure --personalAccessToken=SOME_ACCESS_TOKEN --nx-cloud-url=https://nx-cloud.my-domain.app

`nx-cloud convert-to-nx-cloud-id`

When logging into Nx Cloud with a Personal Access Token, your nx.json file needs to include the nxCloudId property, which acts as a unique identifier for your workspace. If you have been using the previous nxCloudAccessToken to connect, simply run npx nx-cloud convert-to-nx-cloud-id to automatically update your configuration to use nxCloudId.

If you are connecting to Nx Cloud with a workspace that is version 19.6 or lower, this command will also install the latest version of the Nx Cloud npm package and add it into your package.json. Only Nx versions 19.7 and higher natively support the nxCloudId property in the nx.json file; for versions 19.6 and lower, the Nx Cloud npm package will be needed to use that property.

Usage:

npx nx-cloud convert-to-nx-cloud-id

`nx-cloud start-ci-run`

At the beginning of your main job, invoke npx nx-cloud start-ci-run. This tells Nx Cloud that the following series of command correspond to the same CI run.

Usage:

npx nx-cloud start-ci-run

:::warning[Do not run start-ci-run locally] npx nx-cloud start-ci-run generates a temporary marker file that can cause a local Nx repo to behave as if it is a part of a CI run. This can cause strange behavior like Nx commands timing out or throwing unexpected errors. To discourage this from happening, this command will run a check to see if it is running in a CI environment. You can bypass this check with npx nx-cloud start-ci-run --force.

If you accidentally run this command locally, remove all generated marker files with npx nx-cloud cleanup. :::

Options

Option	Type	Description	Default
`--distribute-on`	string	Configure the number of agents and launch templates for distributed execution
`--require-explicit-completion`	boolean	Disable automatic completion monitoring and require explicit `nx-cloud complete-ci-run`	`false`
`--stop-agents-after`	string	Comma-separated list of targets after which agents should terminate
`--stop-agents-on-failure`	boolean	Terminate all agents when a command fails	`true`
`--use-dte-by-default`	boolean	Configure Nx to distribute all commands by default	`true`
`--with-env-vars`	string	Comma-separated list of environment variables to pass to Nx Agents
`--force`	boolean	Bypass CI environment check

Detailed Option Usage

--distribute-on

By default, npx nx-cloud start-ci-run is intended for use with Nx Agents and expects --distribute-on to be configured. It will output a warning if this flag is not set. If you are running a distributed execution with a legacy setup without Nx Agents, you can pass --distribute-on=manual to disable this warning.

This command tells Nx Cloud how many agents to use (and what launch templates to use) to distribute tasks. E.g., npx nx-cloud start-ci-run --distribute-on="8 linux-medium-js" will distribute CI using 8 agents that are initialized using the linux-medium-js launch template.

You can also define the configuration in a file and reference it as follows: npx nx-cloud start-ci-run --distribute-on=".nx/workflows/dynamic-changesets.yaml".

distribute-on:
  small-changeset: 3 linux-medium-js
  medium-changeset: 6 linux-medium-js
  large-changeset: 10 linux-medium-js

--stop-agents-after

You can tell Nx Cloud to terminate agents after it sees a certain target or group of targets: npx nx-cloud start-ci-run --stop-agents-after=build,test,e2e.

:::tip[Be as specific] For the best results, always tell Nx Cloud about all targets that should be expected during your pipeline. This will prevent your CI Pipeline Execution from ending prematurely, cutting off any unfinished work. :::

Whether you are running commands serially or in parallel (through use of the & operand or discrete jobs), you should include one or more targets from each command.

Serial command execution
Parallel command execution

Incorrect example:

- run: npx nx-cloud start-ci-run --stop-agents-after=build
- run: nx affected -t build
- run: nx affected -t lint
- run: nx affected -t test

Nx Cloud will only look for the presence of a build target before determining your pipeline can be shut down. Since both lint and test will only run after build is complete, your pipeline would end before all intended work is executed.

Corrected example:

- run: npx nx-cloud start-ci-run --stop-agents-after=lint,test,build
- run: nx affected -t lint
- run: nx affected -t test
- run: nx affected -t build

Incorrect example:

- run: npx nx-cloud start-ci-run --stop-agents-after=test
- run: nx affected -t build & nx affected -t lint & nx affected -t test

At first glance, this example may appear correct. However, since all the commands are executed in parallel, it could be possible that your test command results in full cache hits and finishes faster than the build and lint commands. In this case, Nx Cloud will stop your pipeline, leaving work incomplete for both the build and lint commands.

Corrected example:

- run: npx nx-cloud start-ci-run --stop-agents-after=lint,test,build
- run: nx affected -t build & nx affected -t lint & nx affected -t test

Advanced shutdown targeting

In advanced pipeline setups, it is possible that you want to run multiple commands with the same target, but with distinct configurations. An example of this may be doing static translations for different locales during your builds.

- run: npx nx-cloud start-ci-run --stop-agents-after=build
- run: nx affected -t build --configuration=locale-en
- run: nx affected -t build --configuration=locale-es

In this case, the build target will be executed twice, once with the locale-en configuration and once with the locale-es configuration. However, Nx Cloud is only looking for the build target to assess whether the CI Pipeline Execution can be marked complete.

To address this, you can pass an optional configuration to make your targets more specific.

- run: npx nx-cloud start-ci-run --stop-agents-after=build:locale-en,build:locale-es
- run: nx affected -t build --configuration=locale-en
- run: nx affected -t build --configuration=locale-es

--with-env-vars (Nx Agents Only)

By default, invoking npx nx-cloud start-ci-run will take all environment variables prefixed with NX_ and send them over to Nx Agents. This means that your access token, verbose logging configuration and other Nx-related environment variables will be the same on your main CI jobs and the Nx Agent machines.

If you want to pass other environment variables from the main job to Nx Agents, you can do it as follows: --with-env-vars="VAR1,VAR2". This will set VAR1 and VAR2 on Nx Agents to the same values set on the main job before any steps run.

Note: none of the values passed to Nx Agents are stored by Nx Cloud.

Enabling/Disabling Distribution

Invoking npx nx-cloud start-ci-run will tell Nx to distribute by default. You can enable/disable distribution for individual commands as follows:

Nx >= 18
Nx >= 14.7

nx affected -t build --agents (explicitly enable distribution)
nx affected -t build --no-agents (explicitly disable distribution)

nx affected -t build --dte (explicitly enable distribution)
nx affected -t build --no-dte (explicitly disable distribution)

`nx-cloud stop-all-agents`

Same as npx nx-cloud complete-ci-run.

This command tells Nx Cloud to terminate all agents associated with this CI pipeline execution. Invoking this command is not needed anymore. New versions of Nx Cloud can track when the main job terminates and terminate associated agents automatically.

Usage:

npx nx-cloud stop-all-agents

`nx-cloud complete-ci-run`

Explicitly complete a CI run when using --require-explicit-completion with start-ci-run.

Usage:

npx nx-cloud complete-ci-run

`nx-cloud cleanup`

Remove temporary marker files created by start-ci-run if accidentally run locally.

Usage:

npx nx-cloud cleanup

Getting Help

You can get help for any command by adding the --help flag:

npx nx-cloud <command> --help