Migrating to the Aura CLI

The Aura CLI makes heavy use of console commands containing the keyword tenant. To be consistent with that, all Aura CLI documentation pages use the term "tenant", which other parts of the documentation refer to as "project" instead, which is the topological evolution of "tenant".

The Aura CLI has evolved from Neo4j Labs to a supported Neo4j product. The Neo4j Labs Aura CLI continues to be available for installation for the foreseeable future, but without any further development. It is recommended that you move to the Aura CLI as soon as you are able. This section outlines what you must consider to move the Aura CLI.

Behavior

  • The name of the CLI is now aura-cli.

  • Support for using environmental variables has been removed as they can be visible in process listings and can be accidentally logged making them vulnerable to exposure. For sensitive values e.g. Aura API client ID and client secret, a secrets manager is recommended.

  • Neo4j Labs Aura CLI used plural names for commands; the new Aura CLI has singular naming instead.

  • It is not possible to return the raw API response body with the Aura CLI.

  • Flags with the Aura CLI do not have a short form and must be specified in full length.

Feature set

At the time of general availability, the Aura CLI supports these new features compared to the previous Labs project:

  • Customer Managed keys

  • Beta of GraphQL Data APIs

Installation

Download the Aura CLI from https://github.com/neo4j/aura-cli/releases. It is available as a native binary for Windows, Linux and Mac platforms. After downloading the relevant file and extracting the executable, the Aura CLI can be run immediately as there are no dependencies.

Commands

Labs Aura CLI maps to Aura CLI

config

→

config

credentials

→

credential

instances

→

instance

snapshots

→

instance → snapshot

tenants

→

tenant

tenants → get-metrics-integration

→

instance get <InstanceID> returns the URL for metrics integration

NEW: customer-managed-key

NEW: data-api (beta)

Command and flag changes with Aura CLI

As far as was possible, the Aura CLI commands and their flags are the same as for the Labs based Aura CLI. However, there are some changes as outlined in the following sections.

Config

It is not possible to remove a setting and its value although the value itself can be changed. If deletion is wanted, then remove it from the JSON configuration file, either $HOME/Library/Preferences/neo4j/cli/config.json (MAC) or %LOCALAPPDATA%\neo4j\cli\config.json (Windows).

Create a new AuraDB

When creating an Aura instance with the Aura CLI, the memory size is specified with an integer appended with "GB" e.g. "8GB". Previously, this was just the integer.

Delete an AuraDB

The Aura CLI does not prompt for confirmation when deleting an AuraDB and starts the operation immediately.

Update an AuraDB

Only the ID can be used to identify the AuraDB to update. The same properties can be changed as previously: its name and memory size.

Get AuraDB instance details

This now includes the URL to obtain metrics.

Tenants

This command no longer includes a flag to obtain metric integration information. It is also now part of the details returned for an individual AuraDB. See Get AuraDB instance details.

Snapshots

Management of snapshots is now a sub-command of instance and allows for their creation, listing and obtaining their details. Restoration of a snapshot is performed by using the aura-cli instance overwrite command.