• Concept
  • Version · 6.0
  • Create

What is the Liquibase Secure server CLI?

Last updated: September 29, 2026

What the Change Intelligence CLI is, why it exists, and how it fits into the self-hosted deployment workflow.

The Liquibase Secure server CLI is a lightweight command-line tool that automates self-hosted deployment and management of Liquibase Secure server. It wraps Docker Compose operations with secret generation, health checking, and database migrations into simple, repeatable commands.

What it does

The CLI provides 8 commands that cover the full deployment lifecycle:

Command

Purpose

liquibase-platform install

Full first-run setup: secrets, image pull, migrations, health check

liquibase-platform update

Upgrade an existing deployment in place, preserving data and secrets

liquibase-platform start

Start the stack

liquibase-platform stop

Stop the stack (with optional data reset)

liquibase-platform status

Show service health and versions

liquibase-platform logs

Tail logs or generate a support bundle

liquibase-platform migrate

Run database migrations independently (for upgrades)

liquibase-platform uninstall

Remove the deployment

Why a CLI

The CLI approach was chosen over bash scripts for several key advantages:

  • Testability: Comprehensive automated test coverage, which is difficult to achieve with bash

  • Error handling: Structured error messages with recovery suggestions

  • Cross-platform: Consistent behavior across Linux and macOS

  • Discoverability: Built-in --help for every command, automatic usage generation

Design principles

  • Thin wrapper: The CLI wraps docker compose commands. It does not introduce its own orchestration layer or state management.

  • No daemon: Each command is a one-shot invocation. No background process, no persistent state.

  • Optional: The CLI is a convenience layer. The self-hosted/ directory ships a standard docker-compose.yml, .env.sample, and default.conf.template that work entirely on their own.

How to get the CLI

The CLI ships inside your installer bundle. You pull it from the Liquibase registry with the same credential you use for the container images, so there is no separate download or repository to clone. The Registry access & installer page walks through logging in, pulling the bundle for your platform, and running ./liquibase-platform install.

PreviousRun Liquibase Secure server behind a reverse proxyNextCommand reference