`fluid describe`

Describe the installed CLI as data: its version, the contract schema it validates against, which providers and build engines it ships, and the full command tree. Use it when a script, a UI or a control plane needs to ask the CLI what it can do instead of hard-coding the answer.

Syntax

fluid describe --self [--json]

--self is required. Without it, fluid describe prints a usage line and exits 1, with or without --json:

fluid describe

Usage: fluid describe --self [--json]

Examples

Read the summary:

fluid describe --self

FLUID forge-cli 0.18.1
Schema:    0.7.5
Python:    3.11.15
Providers: local, gcp, aws, snowflake
Engines:   airbyte, custom, dbt, debezium, dlt, duckdb, kafka-connect, meltano, python, spark, sql
Capabilities: airflow_dag_gen, engine_api, lineage

Gate a script on what this installation supports before it calls a stage that needs a given provider or engine. The sample below omits two larger keys, commands and provider_engine_compatibility, which are described under Output reference:

fluid describe --self --json

{
  "fluid_version": "0.18.1",
  "python_version": "3.11.15",
  "schema_version": "0.7.5",
  "providers": ["local", "gcp", "aws", "snowflake"],
  "build_engines": ["airbyte", "custom", "dbt", "debezium", "dlt", "duckdb", "kafka-connect", "meltano", "python", "spark", "sql"],
  "templates": ["starter", "analytics", "ml_pipeline", "etl_pipeline", "streaming"],
  "capabilities": {
    "lineage": true,
    "airflow_dag_gen": true,
    "engine_api": true
  },
  "warnings": []
}

For example, to fail fast when the installed CLI cannot run a given engine against a provider:

fluid describe --self --json | jq -e '.provider_engine_compatibility.gcp | index("dbt")'

Options

Option	Description
`--self`	Describe this installation. Required.
`--json`, `-j`	Emit JSON instead of the human-readable summary.

Output reference

Key	What it holds
`fluid_version`	The installed CLI release.
`python_version`	The Python the CLI runs on.
`schema_version`	The contract schema version the CLI defaults to: the newest stable one. A contract can still declare an older bundled version, or the preview version, in its own `fluidVersion`; see `fluid version`.
`providers`	Provider names the CLI loaded.
`build_engines`	Build engines the CLI knows.
`provider_engine_compatibility`	For each provider, the build engines it supports. Not every engine in `build_engines` is supported on every provider.
`templates`	Names of the project templates.
`capabilities`	Booleans: `lineage`, `airflow_dag_gen`, `engine_api`.
`warnings`	Strings for anything the CLI could not detect while building the description, such as `capability matrix unavailable`. Empty in the sample above.
`commands`	The command tree, described below.

The `commands` tree

commands is a map with two keys: options (the global options, such as --log-level, --log-file and --provider) and subcommands (one entry per command, keyed by name, each carrying help, its options and, for commands that have them, nested subcommands). Every option record has the same fields:

{
  "names": ["--env"],
  "dest": "env",
  "positional": false,
  "required": false,
  "help": "Overlay environment (dev/test/prod)",
  "choices": null,
  "default": null,
  "metavar": null
}

A positional argument has an empty names list and "positional": true. A UI can render a form for a command from this shape without keeping its own copy of the CLI's flags.

Notes

Pairs with fluid doctor: describe reports what is installed, doctor reports whether it works on this machine.
The values change with the installed release. Read them at run time rather than copying the sample above.

fluid describe