Get up and running with the Nhost CLI

The Nhost CLI is the recommended way to start building your application. It sets up a full local development environment including PostgreSQL, Hasura (GraphQL), Authentication, and Storage, tracking all migrations and metadata.

Docker is required to run the local environment.

1. Install the CLI

Choose your preferred installation method:

macOS / Linux (Homebrew)

brew install nhost/tap/nhost

macOS / Linux (cURL script)

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nhost/nhost/main/cli/get.sh | bash

Nix

nix profile install github:nhost/nhost#cli

2. Authenticate

Login to your Nhost account. This is required if you want to pull configuration from an existing Nhost Cloud project (step 3) or deploy later. You can skip it if you only want to develop locally.

nhost login

3. Initialize a Project

Initialize a new Nhost project in your current directory.

nhost init

If you already have a project on Nhost Cloud and want to pull down its configuration:

nhost init --remote

4. Start Local Environment

Start the full Nhost stack locally. This uses Docker to spin up all the necessary services.

nhost up

Once running, the CLI prints the URLs for your local services:

---

Service	URLs
Dashboard:	https://local.dashboard.local.nhost.run
GraphQL:	https://local.graphql.local.nhost.run
Auth:	https://local.auth.local.nhost.run
Storage:	https://local.storage.local.nhost.run
Postgres:	postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/local
Functions:	https://local.functions.local.nhost.run
Mailhog:	https://local.mailhog.local.nhost.run

The local.nhost.run domain resolves to your machine, so these URLs work over HTTPS out of the box.

To stop the environment run nhost down, and to follow the logs run nhost logs.

Next Steps

Now that your local backend is running, you can connect your frontend application to it. Choose a framework quickstart from the sidebar to continue.