The official command-line interface for Unikraft Cloud — deploy and manage unikernels globally in milliseconds.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for build instructions, testing, and release process.

• Deploy Instantly — Run unikernel images as serverless instances with unikraft run
• Global Infrastructure — Deploy across multiple metros with automatic multi-region support
• Resource Management — Full CRUD operations for instances, volumes, services, certificates, and images
• Scale-to-Zero — Built-in support for scale-to-zero policies to optimize costs
• Multiple Output Formats — Machine-readable JSON or human-friendly text output
• Profile Management — Switch between multiple accounts and configurations
• Shell Completions — Tab completion for Bash, Zsh, Fish, and PowerShell

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -fsSL https://unikraft.com/cli/install.sh | sh

irm https://unikraft.com/cli/install.ps1 | iex

brew install unikraft/cli/unikraft

# Update and install dependencies
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ca-certificates curl

# Download and add the GPG key
sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings

sudo curl -fsSL \
  -o /etc/apt/keyrings/unikraft-cli.gpg \
  https://pkg.unikraft.com/debian/cli-apt/keys/cli-apt.gpg

sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/unikraft-cli.sources <<EOF
Types: deb
URIs: https://pkg.unikraft.com/debian/cli-apt/
Suites: $(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME")
Components: stable
Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/unikraft-cli.gpg
EOF

# Update and install the CLI
sudo apt update
sudo apt install unikraft-cli

# Add the Unikraft CLI repository
sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/unikraft-cli-rpm.repo <<EOF
[unikraft]
name=unikraft
baseurl=https://pkg.unikraft.com/rpm/cli-rpm/
gpgcheck=0
enabled=1
EOF

# Install the CLI at the specific pre-release version
yum install unikraft-cli

nix run github:unikraft/nur#unikraft-cli -- version

nix profile add github:unikraft/nur#unikraft-cli

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    flake-utils.url = "github:numtide/flake-utils";
    unikraft-nur.url = "github:unikraft/nur";
    # Optional: reuse the nixpkgs above instead of evaluating a second one.
    unikraft-nur.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, flake-utils, unikraft-nur }:
    flake-utils.lib.eachDefaultSystem (system:
      let pkgs = import nixpkgs { inherit system; };
      in {
        devShells.default = pkgs.mkShell {
          packages = [ unikraft-nur.packages.${system}.unikraft-cli ];
        };
      });
}

let
  pkgs = import nixpkgs {
    inherit system;
    overlays = [ unikraft-nur.overlays.default ];
  };
in {
  devShells.default = pkgs.mkShell {
    packages = [ pkgs.unikraft-cli ];
  };
}

- name: Install Unikraft CLI
  uses: unikraft/setup-action@v1

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/unikraft-cloud/cli.git
cd cli

# Build the CLI
make cli

# The binary is available in dist/
./dist/unikraft --version

To use unikraft build to build and publish your own images from Dockerfiles or from regular OCI images, you need a BuildKit builder. The easiest way to get one is via Docker, see https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ for installation instructions.

Alternatively, you can also directly setup and use BuildKit, see https://github.com/moby/buildkit#quick-start.

unikraft login

This opens your browser for authentication. Alternatively, provide a token file:

unikraft login --token /path/to/token

Or, if you need to directly specify a metro endpoint, you can manually create a profile:

# Linux and macOS: ~/.config/unikraft/config.yaml
# Windows: %AppData%\unikraft\config.yaml
profile: default
profiles:
  default:
    type: cloud
    organization: <org-name>
    token: <api-token>
    metros:
      - name: <metro-name> # e.g. fra
        endpoint: <metro-endpoint> # e.g. https://api.fra.unikraft.cloud
        country: <metro-country> # e.g. de
        insecure: false # skip tls verification (avoid for production use)

You can also use your old, already set, UKC_METRO/UKC_TOKEN by setting also this variable:

export UNIKRAFT_PROFILE_ENV="true"

unikraft run --metro=fra -p 443:8080/http+tls --image=nginx:latest

This deploys an NGINX instance in Frankfurt with HTTPS enabled.

unikraft instances list

unikraft instances logs my-instance

Deploy with environment variables:

unikraft run --metro=sfo -e KEY=VALUE -e DEBUG=true --image=my-app:latest

Deploy with an attached volume:

unikraft run --metro=was -v my-volume:/data --image=my-app:latest

Deploy with custom resources:

unikraft run --metro=dal -m 512MiB --vcpus 2 --image=my-app:latest

Deploy with scale-to-zero:

unikraft run --metro=sin --scale-to-zero policy=on,cooldown-time=300 --image=my-app:latest

Create an instance with multiple service ports:

unikraft run --metro=fra -p 443:8080/http+tls -p 80:443/http+redirect --image=nginx:latest

Edit an existing instance:

unikraft instances edit my-instance --set image=nginx:1.27

Clone a volume:

unikraft volumes clone my-volume --set name=my-volume-backup

Build and publish an image from a Kraftfile:

unikraft build . --output my-org/my-app:latest

The CLI stores configuration in ~/.config/unikraft/config.yaml on Linux and macOS, and in %AppData%\unikraft\config.yaml on Windows. On Linux and macOS, if XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set, the CLI uses $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/unikraft/config.yaml. If UNIKRAFT_CONFIG is set, the CLI uses that path.

Manage multiple accounts or configurations with profiles:

# List profiles
unikraft profile list

# Switch profile
unikraft profile use staging

# Use a profile for a single command
unikraft --profile=staging instances list

The CLI supports multiple output formats via the -o flag:

# Default table output
unikraft instances list

# JSON output
unikraft instances list -o json

# Show specific fields
unikraft instances get my-instance --fields name,state,image

# Include verbose/detailed fields
unikraft instances get my-instance -v

unikraft mcp lets AI assistants such as Claude Code, Claude Desktop or Cursor manage Unikraft Cloud through the Model Context Protocol. Every resource type gets typed tools such as instance_list or volume_create, instances also get instance_control and instance_logs, and sandboxes get sandbox_exec, sandbox_read and sandbox_write. The tools use the current profile, and the documentation is served as unikraft://docs resources.

Register the server with a client as a stdio server:

{"mcpServers": {"unikraft": {"command": "unikraft", "args": ["mcp"]}}}

With Claude Code:

claude mcp add unikraft -- unikraft mcp

Serve fewer tools to keep the assistant's context small, or only the ones that cannot change anything:

# Only the instance, volume and metro tools
unikraft mcp --resources instance,volume,metro

# Only list, image_get, instance_logs and sandbox_read
unikraft mcp --read-only

Pass --listen to serve over HTTP at /mcp instead, and --tls-cert with --tls-key for HTTPS. Clients then register the server by URL:

unikraft mcp --listen 127.0.0.1:8080

{"mcpServers": {"unikraft": {"type": "http", "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8080/mcp"}}}

Only loopback addresses are accepted unless --allow-remote is given. Every client acts with the profile's credentials, so put an authenticating proxy in front of a server that others can reach.

Generate completion scripts for your shell:

# Bash
unikraft completion -c bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/unikraft

# Zsh
unikraft completion -c zsh > "${fpath[1]}/_unikraft"

# Fish
unikraft completion -c fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/unikraft.fish

The CLI collects usage analytics to improve the product. When you are logged in, events are keyed to the user and organization UUIDs of the active profile. Otherwise, events use an anonymous machine hash. To opt out:

# Disable for a single command
unikraft --no-telemetry instances list

# Disable permanently
export UNIKRAFT_TELEMETRY=false

# Or
export DO_NOT_TRACK=1

BSD-3-Clause. See LICENSE.md for details. Copyright (c) 2026, Unikraft GmbH and The Unikraft CLI Authors.

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