Authentication & Profiles

The frontline CLI authenticates against the Frontline Public API with a Bearer API key. The max binary shares the same key store — logging in with either keeps both in sync.

Getting an API key from the app

Open the Frontline app, click your user name in the bottom-left of the sidebar, and choose Settings.

• Personal (USER) key — recommended for CLI use. Under My settings → Bring your own Agent → Create personal API key. Each user can hold up to 5 personal keys. This is the key type the CLI is most useful with: writes are attributed to the user.
• Account (GENERAL) key — under Account settings → Developer → Create API key. Read-only integrations and dashboards. Does not work on endpoints that require USER scope (they return 401).

Copy the key the moment it’s shown — Frontline stores only the SHA-256 hash, so it can never be displayed again. If you lose a key, delete it from that same screen and create a new one.

Quick start

frontline auth login <api-key>

This stores the key in the current profile (default name: default) and points it at the production Public API at https://prod-api.getfrontline.ai/public/v1. It also writes the same key to the matching Max profile.

Managing profiles

Create a profile for each environment

# Production (uses the default base URL)
frontline auth login <prod-key> --profile prod

# A custom environment / on-prem
frontline auth login <key> --profile staging --base-url https://staging-api.example.com/public/v1

Passing --profile to login switches the active profile to the new one automatically.

Switch the active profile

frontline auth profiles use prod

After this, every command without an explicit --profile uses the prod key and base URL.

List profiles

frontline auth profiles list             # JSON output (default)
frontline auth profiles list --pretty    # human-readable

Shows each profile’s redacted key preview, base URL, which one is active, and the on-disk config path.

Check identity

frontline auth whoami

Calls GET /public/v1/me and prints the account (and user, for USER keys) the active key represents.

Remove a profile

frontline auth logout                    # removes the active profile
frontline auth logout --profile staging  # removes a named profile

max auth logout also removes the matching Frontline profile by default. Pass --keep-frontline on the Max side to clear only Max.

Per-call overrides

Any command accepts these one-off flags:

frontline agents list --api-key <other-key>
frontline agents list --profile staging
frontline agents list --base-url https://staging-api.example.com/public/v1

Useful for scripts and CI where you don’t want to persist credentials.

Pass --profile, --api-key, and --base-url on the leaf command (the subcommand you run), not immediately after the frontline binary:

frontline auth whoami --profile staging          # correct
frontline sharing get --profile user-a ...       # correct
frontline --profile staging auth whoami          # wrong — Commander rejects this

Resolution priority

When a command needs credentials, the CLI resolves them in this order:

1. --api-key / --base-url flags on the command.
2. FRONTLINE_API_KEY / FRONTLINE_BASE_URL environment variables.
3. The active profile’s stored values.
4. Built-in default base URL: https://prod-api.getfrontline.ai/public/v1.

Config location

Config is stored by the OS using the standard conf package paths:

• macOS: ~/Library/Preferences/frontline-cli-nodejs/
• Linux: ~/.config/frontline-cli-nodejs/
• Windows: %APPDATA%\frontline-cli-nodejs\Config\

Run frontline auth profiles list --pretty to print the exact path the CLI is using.

Typical workflow

# 1. Set up profiles once
frontline auth login <dev-key>  --profile dev
frontline auth login <prod-key> --profile prod

# 2. Work in dev
frontline auth profiles use dev
frontline object list
frontline agents list

# 3. Switch to prod when needed
frontline auth profiles use prod
frontline workflows list

# 4. Quick one-off against a third profile without switching
frontline object list --profile staging

Troubleshooting

See also

• API authentication reference: https://docs.getfrontline.ai/docs/authentication
• CLI auth page: https://docs.getfrontline.ai/cli/authentication
• For UI walkthroughs (channels, billing, etc.): https://help.getfrontline.ai