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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 |
|---|---|
| Full first-run setup: secrets, image pull, migrations, health check |
| Upgrade an existing deployment in place, preserving data and secrets |
| Start the stack |
| Stop the stack (with optional data reset) |
| Show service health and versions |
| Tail logs or generate a support bundle |
| Run database migrations independently (for upgrades) |
| 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
--helpfor every command, automatic usage generation
Design principles
Thin wrapper: The CLI wraps
docker composecommands. 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 standarddocker-compose.yml,.env.sample, anddefault.conf.templatethat 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.