---
title: Get started with Tiger CLI | Tiger Data Docs
description: Install Tiger CLI and manage the resources in your Tiger Cloud project from the command line
---

Tiger CLI is a command-line interface for managing Tiger Cloud programmatically. It lets you, your scripts, and AI agents provision, configure, and manage Tiger Cloud services. Tiger CLI calls Tiger REST API under the hood and bundles Tiger MCP for AI agents. For how these compare and where each fits, see [Tiger CLI and Tiger MCP](/learn/tiger-cli-mcp/index.md).

This page shows you how to install and set up secure authentication for Tiger CLI, then create your first service. Along the way you manage Tiger Cloud resources such as VPCs, services, and related infrastructure.

## Install and configure Tiger CLI

1. **Install Tiger CLI**

   Use the terminal to install the CLI:

   - [macOS](#tab-panel-577)
   - [Debian](#tab-panel-578)
   - [Ubuntu](#tab-panel-579)
   - [Red Hat](#tab-panel-580)
   - [Fedora](#tab-panel-581)
   - [Windows PowerShell](#tab-panel-582)
   - [x-platform](#tab-panel-583)

   Terminal window

   ```
   brew install --cask timescale/tap/tiger-cli
   ```

   Terminal window

   ```
   curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/timescale/tiger-cli/script.deb.sh | sudo os=any dist=any bash
   sudo apt-get install tiger-cli
   ```

   Terminal window

   ```
   curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/timescale/tiger-cli/script.deb.sh | sudo os=any dist=any bash
   sudo apt-get install tiger-cli
   ```

   Terminal window

   ```
   curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/timescale/tiger-cli/script.rpm.sh | sudo os=rpm_any dist=rpm_any bash
   sudo yum install tiger-cli
   ```

   Terminal window

   ```
   curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/timescale/tiger-cli/script.rpm.sh | sudo os=rpm_any dist=rpm_any bash
   sudo yum install tiger-cli
   ```

   Terminal window

   ```
   irm https://cli.tigerdata.com/install.ps1 | iex
   ```

   Terminal window

   ```
   curl -fsSL https://cli.tigerdata.com | sh
   ```

2. **Authenticate Tiger CLI**

   1. In an interactive terminal, start the login flow:

      Terminal window

      ```
      tiger auth login
      ```

      Tiger CLI opens Console in your browser to sign in with OAuth. Log in, or sign up if you don't have a Tiger Cloud account yet, then authorize Tiger CLI. If the browser does not open automatically, copy the `Auth URL` printed in the terminal.

      For non-interactive sessions such as scripts and CI, you can authenticate with [client credentials](/integrate/find-connection-details#create-client-credentials/index.md) instead of the browser flow.

   2. Select a Tiger Cloud project:

      ```
      Auth URL is: https://console.cloud.tigerdata.com/oauth/authorize?client_id=...&code_challenge_method=S256&redirect_uri=http://localhost:PORT/callback&response_type=code&state=...
      Opening browser for authentication...
      Select a project:


      > 1. Tiger Project (tgrproject)
        2. YourCompany (Company wide project) (cpnproject)
        3. YourCompany Department (dptproject)


      Successfully logged in (project: tgrproject)


      🎉 Next steps:
      • Install MCP server for your favorite AI coding tool: tiger mcp install
      • List existing services: tiger service list
      • Create a new service: tiger service create
      • Enable read-only mode: tiger config set read_only true
      ```

      If only one project is associated with your account, this step is skipped. Tiger CLI stores the OAuth session in your system keychain, or in `~/.config/tiger/credentials` with restricted file permissions (600) if the keychain is unavailable, and refreshes it automatically. Tiger CLI stores your configuration in `~/.config/tiger/config.yaml`. To sign out and revoke the session, run `tiger auth logout`.

3. **Test your authenticated connection to Tiger Cloud by listing services**

   Terminal window

   ```
   tiger service list
   ```

   This call returns something like:

   - No services:

     ```
     🏜️  No services found! Your project is looking a bit empty.
     🚀 Ready to get started? Create your first service with: tiger service create
     ```

   - One or more services:

     ```
     ┌────────────┬─────────────────────┬────────┬─────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────────┐
     │ SERVICE ID │        NAME         │ STATUS │    TYPE     │    REGION    │     CREATED      │
     ├────────────┼─────────────────────┼────────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────────┤
     │ tgrservice │ tiger-agent-service │ READY  │ TIMESCALEDB │ eu-central-1 │ 2025-09-25 16:09 │
     └────────────┴─────────────────────┴────────┴─────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────────┘
     ```

## Create your first Tiger Cloud service

Create a new Tiger Cloud service using Tiger CLI:

1. **Submit a service creation request**

   Run the service creation command:

   Terminal window

   ```
   tiger service create
   ```

   By default, this creates a service with 0.5 CPU and 2 GB memory. To customize the configuration, use the [`service create` command flags](/reference/tiger-cloud/tiger-cli/index.md)—for example, `tiger service create --cpu shared --memory shared` for a free service.

   Tiger Cloud services come with several extensions pre-installed, including `pgvector`, `pgvectorscale`, and `pg_textsearch`. To use any of these extensions in your database, you must first create them with SQL:

   ```
   CREATE EXTENSION pgvector;
   ```

   Note

   Free services are currently in beta.

   Free services with shared CPU/memory are only available in the `us-east-1` region. Standard services can be created in any available AWS or Azure region using the `--region` flag.

   Tiger Cloud creates a Development environment for you. That is, no delete protection, high-availability, spooling or read replication. You see something like:

   ```
   🚀 Creating service 'db-11111' (auto-generated name)...
   ✅ Service creation request accepted!
   📋 Service ID: <service-id>
   🔐 Password saved to system keyring for automatic authentication
   🎯 Set service '<service-id>' as default service.
   ⏳ Waiting for service to be ready (wait timeout: 30m0s)...
   🎉 Service is ready and running!
   🔌 Run 'tiger db connect' to connect to your new service
   ┌───────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   │      PROPERTY     │                                                 VALUE                                                 │
   ├───────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
   │ Service ID        │ <service-id>                                                                                          │
   │ Name              │ db-11111                                                                                              │
   │ Status            │ READY                                                                                                 │
   │ Type              │ TIMESCALEDB                                                                                           │
   │ Region            │ us-east-1                                                                                             │
   │ Environment       │ DEV                                                                                                   │
   │ CPU               │ 0.5 cores (500m)                                                                                      │
   │ Memory            │ 2 GB                                                                                                  │
   │ Direct Endpoint   │ <service-id>.<project-id>.tsdb.cloud.timescale.com:<port>                                             │
   │ Created           │ 2026-07-07 13:36:16 UTC                                                                               │
   │ Connection String │ postgresql://tsdbadmin@<service-id>.<project-id>.tsdb.cloud.timescale.com:<port>/tsdb?sslmode=require │
   │ Console URL       │ https://console.cloud.tigerdata.com/dashboard/services/<service-id>                                   │
   └───────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
   ```

   This service is set as default by the CLI.

2. **Check the CLI configuration**

   Terminal window

   ```
   tiger config show
   ```

   You see something like:

   ```
   ┌──────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   │     PROPERTY     │                             VALUE                             │
   ├──────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
   │ api_url          │ https://console.cloud.tigerdata.com/public/api/v1             │
   │ analytics        │ true                                                          │
   │ console_url      │ https://console.cloud.tigerdata.com                           │
   │ debug            │ false                                                         │
   │ docs_mcp         │ true                                                          │
   │ docs_mcp_url     │ https://mcp.tigerdata.com/docs?disabled_skills=ghost-database │
   │ gateway_url      │ https://console.cloud.tigerdata.com/api                       │
   │ mcp_max_rows     │ 100                                                           │
   │ color            │ true                                                          │
   │ output           │ table                                                         │
   │ password_storage │ keyring                                                       │
   │ read_only        │ false                                                         │
   │ releases_url     │ https://cli.tigerdata.com                                     │
   │ service_id       │ <service-id>                                                  │
   │ version_check    │ true                                                          │
   └──────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
   ```

And that is it, you are ready to use Tiger CLI to manage your services in Tiger Cloud.

For the full list of commands, configuration parameters, and global flags, see the [Tiger CLI reference](/reference/tiger-cloud/tiger-cli/index.md).

## Next steps

- [Integrate Tiger Cloud with your AI agent](/get-started/quickstart/mcp-cli/index.md): Set up Tiger MCP so your AI agent can manage services and run queries.
- [Get started with the REST API](/get-started/quickstart/rest-api/index.md): Manage the same resources over raw HTTP for custom integrations.
- [Tiger CLI reference](/reference/tiger-cloud/tiger-cli/index.md): Every command, flag, and configuration parameter.
- [File an issue in the Tiger CLI repo](https://github.com/timescale/tiger-cli/issues/new): Report bugs or request features to help shape the open-source Tiger CLI and Tiger MCP.