Zowe CLI

Zowe CLI is a command-line interface that lets you interact with the mainframe in a familiar format. Zowe CLI helps to increase overall productivity, reduce the learning curve for developing mainframe applications, and exploit the ease-of-use of off-platform tools. Zowe CLI lets you use common tools such as Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), shell commands, bash scripts, and build tools for mainframe development. Through its ecosystem of plug-ins, you can automate actions on systems such as IBM Db2, IBM CICS, and more. It provides a set of utilities and services that help developers, DevOps engineers, and more become efficient in supporting and building z/OS applications quickly.

This repository also contains the Zowe Node Client SDK. The SDK lets you leverage the underlying APIs to build applications that interface with the mainframe. 

Contents

• Early Access Features
• Documentation
• Contribution guidelines
• Build Zowe CLI from source
• Install Zowe CLI from source
• Uninstall Zowe CLI
• Configure Zowe CLI
• Zowe Node Client SDK
• Run system tests
• FAQs

Early Access Features

To try out early access features, install the "next" release of Zowe CLI (npm install -g @zowe/cli@next). This version may receive breaking changes and is intended to gather early feedback on what may become a future LTS release.

For documentation about these features, see these files:

• Using Global Profile Configuration
• Using Daemon Mode with "zowex"

Documentation

For detailed information about how to install, configure, and use Zowe CLI, see Zowe CLI Documentation. The documentation includes examples and tutorials for how to contribute to Zowe CLI and develop CLI plug-ins.

The docs directory in this repository contains auto-generated typescript documentation under the docs/typedoc directory. To access the typescript documentation locally, navigate to the local node_modules directory that contains the installed package and access the docs directory after you install the Zowe CLI package.

Note: Some links in the auto-generated typescript documentation are not functional at this time.

Contribution guidelines

The following information is critical to working with the code, running/writing/maintaining automated tests, developing consistent syntax in your plug-in, and ensuring that your plug-in integrates with Zowe CLI properly:

For more information about ...	See:
General guidelines that apply to contributing to Zowe CLI and Plug-ins	Contribution Guidelines
Conventions and best practices for creating packages and plug-ins for Zowe CLI	Package and Plug-in Guidelines
Guidelines for contributing to Zowe SDKs	SDK Guidelines
Guidelines for running tests on Zowe CLI	Testing Guidelines
Guidelines for running tests on the plug-ins that you build	Plug-in Testing Guidelines
Documentation that describes the features of the Imperative CLI Framework	About Imperative CLI Framework
Naming CLI commands and developing syntax	Command Format Standards
Documentation that describes the features of the Imperative CLI Framework	About Imperative CLI Framework
Versioning conventions for Zowe CLI and Plug-ins	Versioning Guidelines

Tip: Visit our Sample Plug-in repository for example plug-in code. You can follow developer tutorials here.

Build Zowe CLI from source

The first time that you download Zowe CLI from the GitHub repository, issue the following command to install the required Zowe CLI dependencies and several development tools:

npm install --@zowe:registry=https://registry.npmjs.org --no-package-lock --force

Note: When necessary, you can run the install command again to update dependencies that were changed in package.json.

To build your code changes, issue the following command:

npm run build

When you update package.json to include new dependencies, or when you pull changes that affect package.json, issue the npm update command to download the dependencies.

Install Zowe CLI from source

From your copy of this repository, after a build, navigate to the packages/cli directory, then issue the following command to install Zowe CLI from source:

npm install -g

Notes:

• Depending on how you configured npm on Linux or Mac, you might need to prefix the npm install -g command or the npm uninstall -g command with sudo to let npm have write access to the installation directory.
• On Windows, the npm install -g command might fail several times due to an EPERM error. This appears to be a bug that npm documented in their GitHub issues. This behaviour does not appear to be specific to installing the Zowe CLI package. Unfortunately, the only solution that we know of is to issue the npm cache clean command and the npm install -g command repeatedly until it works.

Uninstall Zowe CLI

From your local copy of this repository, issue the following command to uninstall Zowe CLI:

npm uninstall --global @zowe/cli

Configure Zowe CLI

Zowe CLI configuration is made up of different profiles. The profiles contain the information that Zowe CLI needs to communicate with the mainframe system. For example, credentials and z/OSMF host name. If you try to use Zowe CLI functionality and you get an error message that Zowe CLI failed to load any profiles, see the zowe profiles create --help command for the group of commands that you are trying to use (if any) to initialize your configuration.

The most fundamental Zowe CLI profile is a zosmf profile. Issue the following command to understand how to create a zosmf profile in Zowe CLI:

zowe profiles create zosmf-profile --help

After you create your profile, you can confirm that the properties of your profile can connect to and communicate with your mainframe system successfully by issuing the following command:

zowe zosmf check status

Tip: When you confirm that your profile connects to and communicates with your mainframe system successfully, you can issue the same command at any time to verify the availability and status of the z/OSMF subsystem on your mainframe.

For detailed information about creating service profiles, creating base profiles, or integrating with Zowe API ML, see Using Zowe CLI.

Zowe Node Client SDK

The Zowe Node Client SDK consists of APIs that enable you to build client applications that interface with the mainframe. Use the APIs to build your own client applications or automation scripts, independent of Zowe CLI.

For information about downloading and getting started with the SDK, see the Zowe Docs.

Tip: Alternatively, you can import Zowe CLI into your project to call the Node APIs. However, importing all of Zowe CLI will increase the size of your project. For example, use the following statement to import packages from Zowe CLI:

import { <interfaceName> } from @zowe/cli

Where <interfaceName> is the name of an interface that you populate (i.e. IIssueParms) or a function that submits requests (i.e IssueCommand).

Example API usage

For example usage syntax, see the readme for each API package in this repository:

• Provisioning: Provision middleware and resources such as IBM CICS, IBM Db2, IBM MQ, and more.
• z/OS Console: Perform z/OS console operations.
• z/OS Data Sets: Work with data sets on z/OS.
• z/OS Jobs: Work with batch jobs on z/OS.
• z/OSMF: Return data about z/OSMF, such as connection status or a list of available systems.
• z/OS TSO: Interact with TSO/E adress spaces on z/OS.
• z/OS USS: Work with UNIX system services (USS) files on z/OS.
• z/OS Workflows: Create and manage z/OSMF workflows on z/OS.

Run system tests

In addition to Node.js, you must have a means to execute .sh (bash) scripts, which are required for running integration tests. On Windows, you can install "Git Bash" (bundled with the standard Git installation - check "Use Git and Unix Tools from Windows Command Prompt" installation option).

After downloading/installing the prerequisites, ensure that you can execute the following commands and receive success responses:

1. node --version
2. npm --version
3. On Windows: where sh

To run Zowe CLI system tests, you need a configured properties file with proper system information present.

A dummy properties file is present in the __tests__/__resources__/properties folder, default_properties.yaml. Using this file as a template, you should create a custom_properties.yaml file within the same directory. Git is configured to ignore all properties files in the properties folder, except for the default_properties.yaml file.

Important! Do not check in configured properties files because they contain security principles and other critical information.

You can run the system tests by issuing the following command:

npm run test:system

If the custom_properties.yaml file cannot be found or loaded, an error with relevant details is thrown.

Frequently asked questions

• How can I install Zowe CLI as a root user on Mac/Linux?

  You can install the CLI as root so that all users can access the CLI without installing it individually on their user account. As the root user on Mac/Linux, issue the following command:

  npm i -g @zowe/cli@latest --ignore-scripts

  Warning! If you use this method, plug-ins that are installed as root can only be accessed as root. Users must install plug-ins on their user account or share all profiles/plugins/settings/logs with root. You also might encounter npm errors if you install as root. We recommend that Linux administrators implement a user/group environment where permissions can be more carefully controlled.