Build & deploy
The acira CLI
The acira command-line tool lets you pull a site to your machine, edit it in any editor, preview it locally, and publish it back. It's the developer's path into the platform — the same projects the AI agent builds, on your disk, under your version control.
Install
# macOS / Linux
curl -fsSL https://cli.acira.ai/install.sh | sh
# Windows (PowerShell)
irm https://cli.acira.ai/install.ps1 | iex
The installer verifies the release signature before installing. Run acira upgrade to update to the latest signed release at any time.
Sign in
There's nothing to create or paste. Sign in from the terminal — you'll get a 6-digit code by email — and the machine becomes a connected device on your account:
acira login # enter your email, then the code we send you
acira whoami # show who you're signed in as
A CLI sign-in lasts 90 days and reaches only the sites your account already reaches. For CI, mint an automation credential with acira token create <name> --expires <duration> from a connected machine and set it as ACIRA_TOKEN in the environment — there's no credential flag, so secrets stay out of your shell history. See Connected devices.
The edit loop
acira pull my-site # download the site to ./my-site
acira preview # run it locally with live reload
# ...edit files...
acira lint # validate locally
acira publish -m "..." # take it live
acira status # see local changes and whether the live site moved on
Pulling into an existing project does a three-way sync so you can pull the latest live version and keep your local edits.
Command reference
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
login, logout, whoami, list |
Sign in, sign out, show identity, list accessible sites |
init |
Set up your workspace — sign in, agency, billing, and the AGENTS.md guide for AI editors |
devices |
List the devices connected to your account, and revoke any of them |
token create <name> |
Mint an automation credential for CI (expiry required) |
create <name> |
Create a new site and scaffold it locally (--country fixes where its data lives) |
pull <site> [dir] |
Download a site (three-way sync into an existing project) |
preview |
Local dev server with live reload and the real runtime |
status |
Local changes vs. the pulled version, and staleness |
lint |
Validate templates, schemas, and logic locally |
publish -m "<msg>" |
Publish the site live |
logs |
Recent production console output and errors |
deployments |
Deployment history |
rollback <id> |
Re-publish a previous deployment |
language |
List the site's languages; add/set/rm to change them |
db <op> <table> |
Manage runtime database rows (query/get/create/update/delete/restore/export) |
backup <op> |
Point-in-time data recovery (bookmark/restore/undo/list) |
upgrade |
Update the CLI to the latest signed release |
Add --json to most commands for machine-readable output.
Good to know
- Generated files —
assets/styles.cssandassets/scripts.jsare produced by the platform on every publish. Don't hand-edit them. - Publishing runs checks — see Publishing & safety for the gates that run when you publish.
- AI editors — run
acira initso Claude Code, Cursor, and others understand the platform. - Hand-authored languages are CLI-only —
acira language add <code> --no-translateadds a language you translate yourself, which the app doesn't offer. See Internationalization. - Safe in automation — in CI, a pipe, or under an AI agent the CLI never prompts. If something genuinely needs a person — signing in, setting up an agency, paying — it exits straight away with a distinct code and prints the one command to run.