# smallstep/cli

🧰  A zero trust swiss army knife for working with X509, OAuth, JWT, OATH OTP, etc.

Repository: https://github.com/smallstep/cli
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/smallstep-cli
Homepage: https://smallstep.com/cli
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: security, security-tools, jwt, oauth, x509, tls, oath, totp, encryption, cryptography, sso, mfa, jws, jwe, jose, ssh, certificate
Last push: 2026-08-26T13:18:28+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 95/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 87, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2969, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 84, "gap_med": 12.0, "n_releases_24m": 17}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 4317, forks 315 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:41.864003+00:00)

## What it is
Step CLI is a Go-based command-line tool for building, operating, and automating PKI systems, working with X.509 certificates, JWTs, OAuth tokens, SSH certificates, and TOTP. It also serves as the client for the step-ca online Certificate Authority.

## Use cases
- create and sign self-signed or CA-signed TLS certificates
- inspect and lint X.509 certificates on disk or from a remote server
- generate and validate JWTs and JWKs
- obtain and manage OAuth access tokens
- install root certificates into the system trust store
- generate and verify TOTP tokens for MFA
- issue certificates from a private ACME certificate authority
- create certificate signing requests and key pairs

## When to choose
- you need a general-purpose crypto and PKI toolkit from the command line
- you run or connect to step-ca or Smallstep Certificate Manager
- you want to automate certificate issuance and renewal in scripts or CI/CD
- you need to inspect, lint, or bundle certificates quickly
- you want safe defaults for common crypto operations without being a security engineer

## When to avoid
- you need a GUI or web-based certificate management interface
- you only need a full CA server - use step-ca instead
- you need library bindings to embed in an application rather than a CLI
- you need Windows-native tooling beyond the provided binaries

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: cryptography, security, cli, developer-tools
- domain: security, developer-tools
- platform: windows, cli, cross-platform
- tags: pki, x509, tls, certificates, jwt, oauth, ssh-certificates, totp, mfa, zero-trust, acme, step-ca-client, jose, command-line, devops, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- smallstep/cli (main) score 95

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:41.864003+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:21:45.506424+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/smallstep/cli (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:41.864003+00:00, sha ec3ba3338c0b)
  - homepage: https://smallstep.com/cli (fetched 2026-08-29T09:11:18.626593+00:00, sha 9c48775c39c1)
  - site_page: https://smallstep.com/docs/step-ca/renewal (fetched 2026-08-29T09:11:18.643190+00:00, sha 2bea675351c4)
  - site_page: https://smallstep.com/docs/tutorials (fetched 2026-08-29T09:11:18.645607+00:00, sha a66c2566f290)
  - site_page: https://smallstep.com/docs/step-ca (fetched 2026-08-29T09:11:18.638034+00:00, sha 5a9f5cd95a7d)
  - site_page: https://smallstep.com/docs/step-ca/provisioners (fetched 2026-08-29T09:11:18.639900+00:00, sha 516b658a255b)
  - site_page: https://smallstep.com/docs/step-cli (fetched 2026-08-29T09:11:18.647367+00:00, sha 75c7923021dd)
  - site_page: https://smallstep.com/docs/step-cli/installation (fetched 2026-08-29T09:11:18.648914+00:00, sha 6b614e5007e1)
  - site_page: https://smallstep.com/docs/step-cli/reference/certificate/inspect (fetched 2026-08-29T09:11:18.650484+00:00, sha e889f9259cf3)
  - site_page: https://smallstep.com/webforms/pricing (fetched 2026-08-29T09:11:18.636282+00:00, sha 2b58cb459100)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.