Basic usage for the Databricks CLI

This article shows you how to list Databricks CLI command groups and commands, display Databricks CLI help, and work with Databricks CLI output. See What is the Databricks CLI?.

This article assumes that you have already installed the Databricks CLI and set up the CLI for authentication. See Install or update the Databricks CLI and Authentication for the Databricks CLI.

List CLI command groups

You list the command groups by using the --help or -h option. For example:

databricks -h

List CLI commands

You list the commands for any command group by using the --help or -h option. For example, to list the clusters commands:

databricks clusters -h

Display CLI command help

You display the help for a command by using the --help or -h option. For example, to display the help for the clusters list command:

databricks clusters list -h

Run a command

Complete usage information and syntax for individual commands can be found in the command-line help, but Databricks CLI commands generally conform to the following syntax:

databricks <command-group> <command-name> <subcommand-name> [command-argument-value1] [--<flag1-name> <flag1-value>]

Not every command has additional subcommands. Global flags are available, and some commands have additional flags. For example, the following command outputs available clusters, using a command-specific flag:

databricks clusters list --can-use-client JOBS

Use jq to filter JSON output

Some Databricks CLI commands output JSON, which means you can use jq to filter the output. For example, to list just the display name of an Azure Databricks cluster with the specified cluster ID:

databricks clusters get 1234-567890-abcde123 | jq -r .cluster_name

My-11.3-LTS-Cluster

You can install jq on macOS using Homebrew with brew install jq or on Windows using Chocolatey with choco install jq. For more information on jq, see the jq Manual.

JSON string parameters

The format of string parameters is handled differently in JSON depending on your operating system:

Linux or macOS

You must enclose JSON string parameters in double quotes, and you must enclose the entire JSON payload in single quotes. Some examples:

'{"cluster_id": "1234-567890-abcde123"}'

'["20230323", "Amsterdam"]'

Windows

You must enclose JSON string parameters and the entire JSON payload in double quotes, and the double-quote characters inside the JSON payload must be preceded by \. Some examples:

"{\"cluster_id\": \"1234-567890-abcde123\"}"

"[\"20230323\", \"Amsterdam\"]"

Proxy server configuration

To route Databricks CLI requests and responses through a proxy server, set the HTTPS_PROXY environment variable on the machine where the Databricks CLI is installed to the proxy server's URL.

To set environment variables, see your operating system's documentation.