> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ragen.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Ragen CLI: Install the ragen Command and Scaffold from Your Terminal

> Install the Ragen command line with npm, scaffold an installation without leaving your terminal, and see which commands are coming next.

The Ragen CLI puts a `ragen` command on your `PATH`. It is early: one command does real work today, and it grows toward managing an installation — signing in, checking its health, moving documents in and out — without leaving your terminal.

```bash theme={null}
npm install -g ragen-cli
ragen --help
```

<Note>
  The package is `ragen-cli`; the command is `ragen`. npm declines the plain name because its similarity filter reads it as too close to existing packages, so the install line differs from what you type afterwards.
</Note>

## Requirements

The CLI asks for **Node.js 20 or newer**, which is deliberately lower than the **Node.js 24** a Ragen installation itself needs. This is a client — refusing to print help on an older runtime would be needlessly strict. `ragen create` still enforces the real requirement at the point where an older Node would damage the install.

## What it does today

| Command              | What it does                               |
| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| `ragen create [dir]` | Scaffolds a self-hosted Ragen installation |
| `ragen help`         | Lists every command, built or not          |
| `ragen version`      | Prints the version of the CLI              |

`ragen create` hands the work to [`create-ragen-app`](/quickstart) and forwards your arguments unchanged, so these two are equivalent:

```bash theme={null}
npx create-ragen-app my-ragen-app --skip-docker
ragen create my-ragen-app --skip-docker
```

<Tip>
  The scaffolder's flags — `--yes`, `--provider=`, `--skip-docker`, `--skip-install`, `--ref=` — all work through `ragen create`. The [Quick Start](/quickstart) documents what each one changes.
</Tip>

The scaffolder stays a separate package on purpose. It is the only thing exercising the first-run path, it is tested on every change to the repository, and a second copy of that wizard inside the CLI would drift out of step without anything noticing.

## What is coming

These commands are listed in `ragen help` under **Not built yet**:

| Command        | What it will do                                                                      |
| -------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `ragen login`  | Authenticate against an installation with an API key                                 |
| `ragen doctor` | Check an installation's configuration — reachability, credentials, models, the queue |
| `ragen kb`     | List knowledge bases and upload documents from the terminal                          |
| `ragen plugin` | Manage custom MCP connectors                                                         |

<Warning>
  A command that is not built prints what it is waiting on and **exits non-zero**. That is deliberate: a script that runs `ragen plugin install` against a version that cannot do it should fail, not read the silence as success.
</Warning>

`ragen plugin` is the furthest out, and it waits on something larger than the CLI. Ragen's extension API is MCP — third-party code runs in its own process and never inside the application — and the piece that lets you point Ragen at a server of your own is designed but not yet built. Until then, see [MCP connectors](/integrations/mcp-connectors) for the connectors that ship today.

## Versioning

The CLI talks to an installation over the [public API](/api-reference/quickstart), and self-hosted deployments run many versions at once. Its version number describes the client, not the server you point it at. Upgrade it like any other global package:

```bash theme={null}
npm install -g ragen-cli@latest
```

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Quick Start" icon="rocket" href="/quickstart">
    Scaffold an installation and ask your first question of your own documents.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Roadmap" icon="map" href="/roadmap">
    What is being built next, across the product and the tooling around it.
  </Card>

  <Card title="API Reference" icon="code" href="/api-reference/quickstart">
    The surface the CLI will speak to once it can sign in.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Request a Command" icon="github" href="https://github.com/webamigos/RagenAI/issues">
    Tell us what you would automate first — that is what decides the order.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>