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Install the snoutdata CLI

There are two front doors, and they are for different people. Both install the same tool from the same build, so pick whichever fits the machine you are on.

A binary, for a personcurl -fsSL https://snoutdata.com/install.sh | sh
npm, for an agent or a Node projectnpx snoutdata <command>

The binary needs nothing installed. npx needs Node 20 or newer, which is the whole reason the binary exists: a Go, Python or Rust shop should not have to install a JavaScript runtime to get a Postgres database.

The binary​

curl -fsSL https://snoutdata.com/install.sh | sh

macOS and Linux, on Intel and on ARM. It puts a single executable in $HOME/.local/bin and tells you if that is not on your PATH, because a successful install followed by command not found is the commonest way this goes wrong.

It verifies what it downloaded before it installs it. Every release publishes a SHA256SUMS file beside the binaries; the script checks the one it fetched against that list and stops if they disagree. If the machine has no sha256sum and no shasum, it refuses to install rather than installing something it could not check. A script you pipe into a shell should be held to that.

Two environment variables change what it does:

# a specific version rather than the newest
curl -fsSL https://snoutdata.com/install.sh | SNOUTDATA_VERSION=0.3.0 sh

# somewhere else entirely
curl -fsSL https://snoutdata.com/install.sh | SNOUTDATA_INSTALL_DIR=/usr/local/bin sh

To update, run the same line again: it overwrites the binary in place. To uninstall, delete the file. There is nothing else on the machine except ~/.snoutdata/auth.json, which is your session, and snoutdata logout removes that.

Windows​

The installer does not serve Windows. Use npx snoutdata, or take snoutdata-windows-x64.exe from the releases page and put it somewhere on your PATH.

npm​

npx snoutdata init --env        # no install at all
npm install -g snoutdata        # or keep it around

npx downloads one bundled file with no dependencies and runs it, which is why an MCP config can say npx -y snoutdata and be the entire setup. That shape is the reason this door exists: an agent that has to install something first, and then find it on a PATH it cannot see, fails at exactly that step.

Pinning is free and worth doing in CI: npx -y [email protected].

note

The two doors are built by one job from one commit, so curl | sh and npx give you the same tool. The local development commands (snoutdata start, stop, status) need 0.3.0 or newer: an earlier CLI could not run a database from an install, only from a checkout.

Signing in​

Whichever door you came in by:

snoutdata login              # opens a browser
snoutdata login --device     # prints a code to type into a browser anywhere
snoutdata login --no-browser # prints the URL instead of opening one

The session lasts an hour and is refreshed while you are at the machine. For CI, a cron job or an agent, make an access token instead: see access tokens.

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