Metabase CLI

The Metabase CLI (mb) is a command-line client for Metabase. mb authenticates against a Metabase instance with an API key and lets you or an AI agent read and write content like questions, dashboards, collections, and transforms over the Metabase API.

Looking for the commands built into the Metabase JAR, like migrate or load-from-h2? Check out Metabase JAR commands.

Requirements

• Node.js, to install the CLI from npm.
• A Metabase instance on version 58 or later.
• An API key to authenticate the CLI against your instance.
• A Pro or Enterprise plan for some command groups. For example, git-sync needs the premium Remote sync feature.

Install the CLI

npm install -g @metabase/cli

The binary is mb.

For commands, run:

mb --help

Authenticate the CLI

Log in once per Metabase instance.

mb auth login --url https://metabase.example.com

The CLI prompts for an API key, or reads it from the METABASE_API_KEY environment variable or stdin. To create a key, see API keys.

Credentials are stored per profile, so you can manage more than one Metabase (like dev and prod Metabases):

mb auth login --profile prod --url https://prod.example.com
mb auth list

Add --profile <name> to any command to run it against that instance.

Use the CLI with an AI agent

The CLI is built to be driven by an AI coding agent like Claude Code. Instead of running commands yourself, you install a skill and describe what you want in plain language; the agent works out the commands.

The metabase-cli skill

The metabase-cli skill teaches your agent the CLI’s conventions. Once installed, you can run:

/metabase-cli Create a dashboard summarizing this month's signups by plan.

And your agent will go to work, creating content directly in your Metabase via the mb CLI.

Use the CLI for agent-driven development

Pair the CLI with version control to build content with an agent in a development Metabase, commit the changes, and pull the changes into your production Metabase. Check out Agent-driven development.

Further reading

• @metabase/cli on npm
• Agent-driven development
• Agent skills
• Remote sync
• Serialization
• Metabase JAR commands