CLI Overview

TFx CLI commands let you interact with HCP Terraform and Terraform Enterprise from scripts, CI/CD pipelines, and the terminal. Each command follows the pattern:

tfx <resource> <action> [flags]

For example:

tfx workspace list
tfx workspace show -w my-workspace
tfx variable list -w my-workspace

Environment variables and flags

Profiles are the recommended approach, but you can also configure TFx with environment variables or flags directly. These take precedence over profile values.

Flag	Environment Variable	Default
--hostname	TFE_HOSTNAME	app.terraform.io
--organization	TFE_ORGANIZATION	(none)
--token	TFE_TOKEN	(none)

This is useful in CI/CD pipelines where you set credentials via environment variables rather than a config file.

See Getting Started — Configuration precedence for the full resolution order when multiple sources are configured.

Output

CLI commands output a formatted table by default. Add --json (or -j) to get machine-readable JSON for scripting and CI pipelines.

$ tfx variable list -w tfx-test
╭──────────────────────┬───────────┬──────────────┬───────────┬───────┬───────────┬──────────────────────╮
│ ID                   │ KEY       │ VALUE        │ SENSITIVE │ HCL   │ CATEGORY  │ DESCRIPTION          │
├──────────────────────┼───────────┼──────────────┼───────────┼───────┼───────────┼──────────────────────┤
│ var-7XYNuuo4tMjXeXG4 │ variable7 │ {"a":"1"...} │ false     │ true  │ terraform │ I am a map in a file │
│ var-MJaLJ7czxKuU48eu │ variable3 │ It is friday │ false     │ false │ env       │ I am environmental   │
╰──────────────────────┴───────────┴──────────────┴───────────┴───────┴───────────┴──────────────────────╯

$ tfx variable list -w tfx-test --json | jq '.[].Key'
"variable7"
"variable3"