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Basic usage for the Databricks CLI

note

This information applies to Databricks CLI versions 0.205 and above. The Databricks CLI is in Public Preview.

Databricks CLI use is subject to the Databricks License and Databricks Privacy Notice, including any Usage Data provisions.

This page shows you how to list Databricks CLI command groups and commands, display Databricks CLI help, and work with Databricks CLI output. See What is the Databricks CLI?.

To install and configure authentication for the Databricks CLI, see Databricks CLI tutorial.

List available CLI commands​

To list available CLI command groups, use the --help or -h option, for example:

Bash
databricks -h

To list the commands for any command group, use the --help or -h option. For example, to list the clusters commands:

Bash
databricks clusters -h

Display CLI command help​

To display usage information for a command, use the --help or -h option with the command. For example, to display the help for the clusters list command:

Bash
databricks clusters list -h

Command reference is also available. See Databricks CLI commands.

Run a command​

Complete usage information and syntax for individual commands can be found in the command-line help and reference, but Databricks CLI commands generally conform to the following syntax:

databricks <command-group> <command-name> <subcommand-name> [command-argument-value1] [--<flag1-name> <flag1-value>]

Not every command has additional subcommands. Global flags are available, and some commands have additional flags. For example, the following command outputs available clusters, using a command-specific flag:

Bash
databricks clusters list --can-use-client JOBS
tip

You can run Databricks CLI commands from within a Databricks workspace using the web terminal. The workspace web terminal can be used by many users on one compute and does not require you to configure authentication. See Run shell commands in Databricks web terminal.

JSON input and output​

Some Databricks CLI commands have a --json flag or other options that accept JSON string input. In addition, some commands output a JSON string.

String formatting​

The format of JSON strings depends on your operating system:

Enclose JSON string parameters in double quotes and enclose the entire JSON payload in single quotes. For example:

'{"cluster_id": "1234-567890-abcde123"}'
'["20230323", "Amsterdam"]'

Set fields in a JSON string​

The --json flag on many commands enables you to set object fields that may not be available as CLI commands or options. For example, the following call adds a user with the ID 9ddddddd-1eee-4eee-a666-8fff7c111111 to the group with the ID 7eeeeeee-9ccc-4aaa-b777-1aaaaaaaaaa:

Bash
databricks account groups patch 7eeeeeee-9ccc-4aaa-b777-1aaa2eeeee6f --json '{
  "schemas": ["urn:ietf:params:scim:api:messages:2.0:PatchOp"],
  "Operations": [
    {
      "op": "add",
      "path": "members",
      "value": [
        {
        "value": "9ddddddd-1eee-4eee-a666-8fff7c111111"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}'

Filter JSON output with jq​

For Databricks CLI commands that output JSON, you can use the jq command-line processor to filter the output. For example, to list just the display name of a Databricks cluster with the specified cluster ID:

Bash
databricks clusters get 1234-567890-abcde123 | jq -r .cluster_name
Output
My-11.3-LTS-Cluster

You can install jq on macOS using Homebrew with brew install jq or on Windows using Chocolatey with choco install jq. For more information on jq, see the jq Manual.

Proxy server configuration​

To route Databricks CLI requests and responses through a proxy server, set the HTTPS_PROXY environment variable on the machine where the Databricks CLI is installed to the proxy server's URL.

To set environment variables, see your operating system's documentation.