Popular Magento CLI Commands, Their Syntax, Usage, and How to Create Custom Magento Command

Magento is a powerful CMS that offers CLI (Command Line Interface)/SSH access. Many new Magento 2 commands have been added in bin/magento, to perform multiple operations in a Magento application just through the Magento CLI.

What is Magento CLI and How to Access Files Through it

CLI is a text-based user interface used to run programs, manage files, and interact with computers or applications. If your Magento store is hosted on a server with an operating system like Linux, then commands (text based) would be used to interact with the Magento application and perform certain tasks.

How to Access Files Through Magento CLI

You can access your application from the server based on your operating system..

The general directory structure for Magento is:

cd <magento_root>/bin

For example:

Ubuntu: cd /var/www/magento2/bin

CentOS: cd /var/www/html/magento2/bin

Since my store is hosted on Cloudways so this is how I will access Magento CLI:

1. Login to your Server and access SSH

2. Enter your Credentials

3. Access your Magento application and it’s public folder

Now, you are in the public directory of the Magento application and can run any bin/magento command.

List of Useful Magento 2 Commands And How to Use Them

The Magento 2 CLI commands structure is more similar to this one:

Command Structure: [option] [arguments]

Magento Commands can be used in any of these 3 ways:

1. php magento <command>
2. ./magento <command>
3. magento <command>

Example: php bin/magento indexer:reindex

Here are some of the useful and common Magento commands for managing the Magento application.

Magento 2 Cache Commands

As the name suggests, this Magento 2 command can manipulate Magento’s caching option. You can enable, disable, clean, flush or check status of Magento cache with these commands:

• Command: magento cache:{enable/disable/clean/flush/status}

Example

To list cache types and their status

magento cache:status

To enable all caches OR any specific cache type

magento cache:enable

To disable all caches OR any specific cache type

magento cache:disable

It would delete cache types linked with Magento only

magento cache:clean

Deletes all cache of the same storage

magento cache:flush

Magento 2 Indexer Commands

The indexer is a widely used option in Magento 2. Previously there wasn’t any method to update indexing manually, but now it can also be done through Magento’s Admin panel. Besides reindexing, you have the options to set indexing mode and to check the status of indexer via Magento CLI.

• Command: magento indexer: {status/show-mode/set-mode/reindex/info/reset/show-dimensions-mode/set-dimensions-mode}

Example

Show list of all indexers

magento indexer:info

View status of all indexers or specific indexer only

magento indexer:status

For changing indexer mode

magento indexer:set‐mode

To reindex all the indexer or specific indexer only

magento indexer:reindex

To invalidate all the indexer or specific indexer only

magento indexer:reset

For viewing indexer current configuration

magento indexer:show-mode

Magento 2 Admin Commands

With this Magento command, you can create a new admin user, edit or unlock the user that is already created through Magento CLI.

Command:

• bin/magento admin:user:{create/unlock}
• bin/magento admin:user:create [–<parameter_name>=<value>, …]

Example:

magento admin:user:create ‐‐admin‐user="example" ‐‐admin‐password="example123" ‐‐admin‐email="[email protected]" ‐‐admin‐firstname="example" ‐‐admin‐lastname="example"

Magento 2 Module Commands

This Magento command can be used to enable, disable, uninstall or check the status of all the installed modules through Magento CLI. Disabling or uninstalling a module will fail with this Magento 2 command if there is any dependency of that module.

• Command: magento module:user:{status/enable/disable/uninstall}

Example

Check status of Magento modules

magento module:status

To enable specific Magento module

magento module:enable

To disable specific Magento module

magento module:disable

To uninstall specific Magento module

magento module:uninstall

Magento 2 Cron Command

With this Magento 2 command, we can execute the scheduled Magento Cron jobs manually. You can put this command in the scheduler, so the application’s task can be executed in a timely manner.

Command

magento cron:run

Magento 2 Setup Commands

There are plenty of things that you can do with these Magento commands.

•  Backup

We can backup our application’s code, database, and media files through this Magento CLI command. Backup can be found in the var/backup/directory of your web root.

Command

magento setup:backup ‐‐code ‐‐media ‐‐db

•  Config:set

This option can be used to make configuration changes in Magento. The changes involve DB parameters, admin URL, etc. You can see your provided values reflected in the app/etc/env.php file.

Command

magento setup:config:set ‐‐backend‐frontname="admin" ‐‐db‐host="localhost" ‐‐db‐name="example" ‐‐db‐user="example" ‐‐db‐password="example"

•  Other Magento Setup Commands

It Compiles all non-existent proxies, factories, pre-compiled class definitions, inheritance information, and plug-in definitions.

Command

magento setup:di:compile

For deploying static view files

• Command bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy {[<languages>] [-t|–theme[=”<theme>”]] [–exclude-theme[=”<theme>”]] [-l|–language[=”<language>”]] [–exclude-language[=”<language>”]] [-a|–area[=”<area>”]] [–exclude-area[=”<area>”]] [-j|–jobs[=”<number>”]]  [–no-javascript] [–no-css] [–no-less] [–no-images] [–no-fonts] [–no-html] [–no-misc] [–no-html-minify] [–no-parent] [-f|–force]}

Example

magento setup:static-content:deploy

bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy en_US --exclude-theme Magento/testtheme --no-html-minify

To generate data for performance testing

Command:

• magento setup:perf:generate-fixtures
• bin/magento setup:perf:generate-fixtures {path to profile}

Example

bin/magento setup:perf:generate-fixtures /var/www/html/magento2/setup/performance-toolkit/profiles/ce/test.xml

Other Useful Magento 2 Commands

To generate translation dictionary

Command:

• magento i18n:{collect-phrases/pack/uninstall}
• bin/magento i18n:collect-phrases [-o|–output=”<csv file path and name>”] [-m|–magento] <path to directory to translate>
• bin/magento i18n:pack [-m|–mode={merge|replace}] [-d|–allow-duplicates] <source> <locale>

Example

magento i18n:collect-phrases

To create CSS from LESS

Command:

• magento dev:source-theme:deploy
• bin/magento dev:source-theme:deploy [–type=”…”] [–locale=”…”] [–area=”…”] [–theme=”…”] [file1] … [fileN]

Example

bin/magento dev:source-theme:deploy --type="less" --locale="en_US" --area="frontend" --theme="VendorName/themeName" css/styles-l

Runs the specified automated test

• Command: bin/magento dev:tests:run <test>

Example

bin/magento dev:tests:run integration

Shows list of test

Example

bin/magento dev:tests:run --help

To update the layout XML file

• Command: bin/magento dev:xml:convert

To install sample data on Magento application

• Command: magento sampledata:install

For managing backend configuration

• Command: magento config:{set/sensitive:set/show/}

To check complete list of Magento commands

• Command: bin/magento list

To get help for any particular command

• Command: bin/magento help <command>

Example

bin/magento help cache:enable

For more details about Magento 2 commands, check out their official guide.

Fairly speaking, we have more freedom working with Magento CLI on these new versions of Magento. With this flexibility, there is little need of using Magento admin for store management.

With CLI commands you can also install Magento 2 on PHP using this tutorial.

So far, we have learned about Magento CLI and how to use it’s predefined commands. Now, let’s learn how to create your custom command and how to use it.

The great thing is that Magento developers can now create custom Magento 2 CLI commands for their modules. While this is great, developers should always make sure that they observe the best code writing standards as defined by the Magento dev community.

How to Add Custom Magento 2 Commands

The process to create Magento 2 commands is simple. In this tutorial, I will not go into the details of creating a Magento 2 module.

Just create a simple module Cloudways_Commandline with etc/module.xml and registration.php files included in the root of the module’s directory.

Now, create a di.xml file in the etc directory of your module. Insert the following code in the file:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
    <config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:ObjectManager/etc/config.xsd">
    <type name="Magento\Framework\Console\CommandList">
       <arguments>
           <argument name="commands" xsi:type="array">
               <item name="CloudwaysHicustomer" xsi:type="object">Cloudways\Commandline\Console\Hicustomer</item>
           </argument>
       </arguments>
   </type>
</config>

As you can see, I have added an entry in the di.xml file. The <type> tag is pointing to the Magento\Framework\Console\CommandList class. Furthermore, it has the <argument> named commands, and the <item>  tag. It seems like Magento 2 does some magic by sending the argument to the CommandList class. That is how dependency injection works – injecting the Command object (defined in the <item> tag) into an array of all commands.

I have also declared a class Cloudways\Commandline\Console\Hicustomer in the <item> tag. This class will set the name, and description of the command using the configure() method. The class will also define the execute() method for the command.

Create Class for Magento 2 Console Command

The next step is the creation of the class file Hicustomer.php (as defined in di.xml), in the Console directory of the module and add the following code to it:

<?php
namespace Cloudways\Commandline\Console;
 
use Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;
 
class Hicustomer extends Command
{
   protected function configure()
   {
       $this->setName('cloudways:hicustomer');
       $this->setDescription('Demo command line');
      
       parent::configure();
   }
   protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output)
   {
       $output->writeln("Hi Customer");
   }
}

The Hicustomer class has two methods. The configure() method is used to set initial configuration (such as name, description, and arguments) for the command. The execute() method will contain the logic that would be executed when the Magento CLI command is called in the console.

Run the Added Magento 2 CLI Command

Once the class has been declared, enable the module, run the setup upgrade command, and flush Magento 2 cache. Now, type the following CLI command to see the list of all available Magento 2 commands:

php bin/magento list

You will notice that the custom Magento CLI command is also on the list.

Now, run the php bin/magento cloudways:hicustomer command to see the desired result.

Add Argument to Custom Magento 2 Command

This was just a basic Magento CLI command. To make things interesting, I will now demonstrate how to add an argument to the custom Magento command. For this, replace the current contents of the class file Hicustomer.php with the following.

<?php
namespace Cloudways\Commandline\Console;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputOption;
 
class Hicustomer extends Command
{
   const CUSTOMERNAME = 'Name';
 
   protected function configure()
   {
       $commandoptions = [new InputOption(self::CUSTOMERNAME, null, InputOption::VALUE_REQUIRED, 'Name')];
 
       $this->setName('cloudways:hicustomer');
       $this->setDescription('Demo command line');
       $this->setDefinition($commandoptions);
      
       parent::configure();
   }
   protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output)
   {
       if ($customername = $input->getOption(self::CUSTOMERNAME))
       {
         $output->writeln("Hi ".$customername);
       }
       else
       {
         $output->writeln("Hi Customer");
       }
   }
}

As you can see, I have created and added the Name argument for the custom Magento command in the configure() method using $this->setDefinition($commandoptions); function and get it in the execute() method.

Once again, run the setup upgrade command and flush the Magento 2 cache. Invoke the custom Magento CLI command by php bin/magento cloudways:hicustomer –Name=”Fayyaz” and it will show “Hi Fayyaz” as an output.

Final Words!

In this tutorial, I have covered the basics to create Magento CLI commands, and explored the best way of adding a new CLI Magento 2 Command. I hope you have found this tutorial useful. If you have any feedback, feel free to share it in the comments section below.