Request: Better docs for Netlify CLI

Support
1

I’m just getting into the Netlify CLI and it’s proving pretty handy, but the documentation seems incomplete. For example, the deploy command has just the bare bones examples, and the dir command documentation hides the fact that you need to invoke it as --dir, not just bare dir.

netlify deploy --dir=./

Also, I’m not seeing how to stop the web server after issuing netlify dev. Is there an off command?

Finally, the docs seem to indicate that you can store parameters in the netlify.toml file, but it seems that at least one option is missing. For example, the publish command allows you to define the location of the source files, but the destination on Netlify seems to be assumed (from the init process?). Sometimes it’s nice to be able to make settings such as that explicit. Not that I would ever forget, mind you, but you know … just because.

Otherwise, for quickie projects and spit-balling, Netlify CLI is just what the doctor ordered. It’s also nice that it seems to be able to figure out which files need have changed since the last invocation, rather than uploading everything and having the server wade through everything. Very nice.

3

Hi @gregraven - thanks for the note. I’ll touch base with the docs team and get an idea of where we are at! Thanks again for pointing this out!

4

Have you seen https://cli.netlify.com/ ? :smiley:

5

Yes, I have seen that site, but as an example, the “dev” page has a “flags” section, but it doesn’t correlate with the “examples” section. Same with the “deploy” page.

6

@gregraven We’re currently working on re-organizing our existing docs, but when we finish that project, our next focus area for content improvements is in the CLI docs, so hopefully you’ll find them much improved in the next few months!

1 Like