You don't need this to use AEP.
The AEP CLI is an optional, separate download for teams who want to connect agents, skills, or automation scripts to AEP programmatically — without opening the desktop app or a browser. If you use AEP through the Desktop App or SaaS UI, you don't need the CLI.
Run AEP skills as a step in a GitHub Actions workflow, Jenkins pipeline, or any CI system that can execute a shell command.
Invoke and chain AEP skills from your own scripts — useful for batch jobs, scheduled runs, or integrations that have no interactive user present.
Trigger an agent run, poll for completion, and retrieve the output — all from a terminal or non-interactive environment.
The CLI authenticates with a personal access token (PAT) — not your browser session or account password, and not a static API key pasted into a config file. Run aep login once and it mints a PAT automatically; every aep command afterward finds and uses it, with nothing to export by hand.
Run aep login in your terminal. It authenticates against whichever deployment is active (see Setting Context below) and stores the resulting token locally. Check who you're logged in as with aep whoami; aep logout clears it.
Mint a token from Account Settings → Personal Access Tokens → New Token (copy it once — it won't be shown again), then set it as AEP_PAT in your CI secrets vault. The CLI checks AEP_PAT before its on-disk credential, so no interactive login is needed in a pipeline.
Authentication (above) decides who you are; context decides which AEP deployment your commands talk to. The two are independent — switching context never forces a re-login, since credentials are stored per context.
aep context-show # which deployment is active right now
aep context-use local # the default — your Desktop App or local dev stack
aep context-use saas # the hosted AEP deployment
aep context-list # see every context you've definedEvery command resolves to your Desktop App or local dev stack — no setup required.
Targets the hosted AEP deployment. Log in again the first time you switch — each context keeps its own stored credential.
Point at any other reachable deployment (e.g. a staging environment) with aep context-create, then switch to it the same way as local/saas.
The CLI can connect to whichever AEP install surface you are licensed for. Choose the surface you're targeting:
Connect the CLI to your locally installed AEP Desktop. The Desktop App must be running; the CLI communicates over a local socket.
# Point the CLI at the Desktop App (the default context)
aep context-use local
aep login
# Verify
aep whoamiOnce Self-Managed is GA, point the CLI at your cluster with a custom context (aep context-create). Working code samples will be published when the surface ships.
[Connection commands — available Q4 2026]
Once SaaS is GA, aep context-use saas will point the CLI at the hosted endpoint. No local install or cluster required — just a login and an account. Working code samples will be published when the surface ships.
[Connection commands — available Q4 2026]
After install, log in and verify: aep login && aep whoami