Getting Started

This guide covers building and running microCMDB.CLI — the interactive console front-end.

Prerequisites

  • .NET SDK — the CLI targets net6.0. You do not need the .NET 6 runtime installed: the project sets <RollForward>Major</RollForward>, so it runs on a newer installed runtime (.NET 8 or 9). Building requires a .NET SDK (8.0 or 9.0 is fine).
  • Docker (optional) — for the containerised run, which uses the .NET 6 base image and therefore needs no roll-forward.

Build 

dotnet build microCMDB.CLI/microCMDB.CLI.csproj

The build emits nullable-reference warnings; these are non-fatal. A successful build reports 0 Error(s).

Run on the host 

dotnet run --project microCMDB.CLI

On start, the CLI creates an in-memory database, seeds it with example data, and drops you at a > prompt:

Creating collections...
Collections created.
Creating a new database...

>

Type help to list commands, or see the CLI Reference. Type exit (or send EOF with Ctrl-D) to quit.

Launcher script

For an interactive session in its own terminal window that closes itself when the CLI exits, use the helper script:

scripts/run-cli.sh host     # dotnet run on the host (default)
scripts/run-cli.sh docker   # interactive run inside the container

Run in Docker

The CLI ships with a Dockerfile that builds on the .NET 6 images, so it runs natively without roll-forward.

# Build the image
docker build -t microcmdb-cli -f microCMDB.CLI/Dockerfile microCMDB.CLI

# Run interactively
docker run -it --rm microcmdb-cli dotnet microCMDB.CLI.dll

Note: the Dockerfile’s default CMD starts an SSH daemon (for remote debugging from Visual Studio), not the CLI. The app is published with UseAppHost=false, so the interactive command above launches it explicitly via dotnet microCMDB.CLI.dll.

Persisting data

The database is in-memory and is lost when the process exits. Use the export command to write the current contents to CSV files in the working directory. See the Data Model page for the CSV format.