CLI quickstart: manage labs from the terminal

The netplex CLI wraps the REST API in a single netplex command - log in once, then list, create, start and tear down labs without leaving the terminal. It is the same surface the web UI uses, so anything you can do by clicking, you can script.

Every command below was run against a live instance before this page was published.

Log in (saves a token to ~/.npx/config.json, reused by every later command):

netplex login --username you --password '...'
# → Logged in as you

List and create labs:

netplex labs list
# → No labs found.   (or a table of your existing labs)

netplex labs create "CI Smoke Test"
# → Created lab: CI Smoke Test (id=649b60a1-aa66-4673-8b8d-f37895bc337a)

Start it, check status, tear it down:

netplex labs start <lab-id>
netplex labs status <lab-id>
netplex labs delete <lab-id>
# → Delete lab <lab-id>? This cannot be undone. [y/N] y
# → Deleted lab <lab-id>

Nodes, images and migration work the same way:

netplex nodes list <lab-id>
netplex nodes console <lab-id> <node-id>        # opens a telnet/SSH console
netplex images list
netplex import eveng my-lab.unl                 # convert an EVE-NG export
netplex import gns3 my-lab.gns3project           # convert a GNS3 project

Run automated tests against a live lab (built-in checks: node-health, connectivity, link-activity - the same three checks the CI/CD integration guide uses over raw curl):

netplex test list <lab-id>
netplex test run <lab-id>
netplex test results <lab-id>

Dev workflow - turn a netplex.yaml file into a running lab in one command, useful for a local reproducible dev environment:

netplex dev up               # create + start the lab described in ./netplex.yaml
netplex dev exec api -- sh   # run a command inside a service's node
netplex dev down --delete    # tear it down when you're done

Every command respects NETPLEX_URL (which server to talk to) and NETPLEX_TOKEN (skip the login step in CI by injecting a token as a secret) as environment variables - see netplex config to check what the CLI currently has loaded. For raw HTTP instead of the CLI, see "REST API quickstart"; for the full endpoint reference, every deployment serves a live, auth-gated OpenAPI schema at /api/v1/openapi.json (Swagger UI at /api/v1/docs).