Authenticate the QA Wolf CLI

Install the qawolf CLI and connect it to your workspace so it can pull and run your flows.

Before the CLI can pull flows from your workspace or run flows that depend on environment variables, it needs an API key. You can log in interactively for local development, or pass the key through an environment variable for CI.

Install the CLI

Node.js 24 or later is required.

Install the CLI globally with npm:

npm install -g @qawolf/cli

Verify the install:

qawolf --version

Log in for local development

1. Generate an API key in your QA Wolf workspace under Workspace settings → API keys.

2. Run the login command:

   qawolf auth login
   

   The CLI prompts for your API key, validates it against the platform, and stores it in your system keychain. When a keychain is not available, the CLI falls back to a local config file in your user profile directory.

3. Confirm the connection:

   qawolf auth whoami
   

   The output shows the team name, ID, and where the credential was loaded from.

Authenticate in CI

CI environments cannot prompt for input. Set the QAWOLF_API_KEY environment variable instead:

export QAWOLF_API_KEY=<your-api-key>
qawolf flows pull --env staging

The CLI prefers QAWOLF_API_KEY over any credential stored by qawolf auth login, so the same machine can switch between accounts by setting or unsetting the variable.

Log out

qawolf auth logout

qawolf auth logout only removes credentials stored by qawolf auth login. Credentials set through QAWOLF_API_KEY cannot be removed by this command — unset the variable in your shell instead.

Switch the API URL

By default the CLI talks to https://app.qawolf.com. Override this with QAWOLF_API_URL if your workspace uses a different host:

export QAWOLF_API_URL=https://qawolf.example.com

See the Environment variables reference for the full list of variables the CLI reads.