Last updated August 25, 2022

The Heroku Command Line Interface (CLI) lets you create and manage Heroku apps directly from the terminal. It’s an essential part of using Heroku.

Install the Heroku CLI

Pre-requisites

The Heroku CLI requires Git, the popular version control system. If you don’t already have Git installed, complete the following:

• Git installation
• First-time Git setup

Install with an Installer

macOS

$ brew tap heroku/brew && brew install heroku

Windows

Download the appropriate installer for your Windows installation:

64-bit installer

32-bit installer

Standalone Installation with a Tarball

The standalone install is a simple tarball with a binary. It contains its own node.js binary and autoupdates.

To set up the CLI in /usr/local/lib/heroku and /usr/local/bin/heroku, run the following script. The script requires sudo and isn’t Windows compatible.

$ curl https://cli-assets.heroku.com/install.sh | sh

You can also download one of the following tarballs and extract it yourself.

Tarballs

These tarballs are available in gz or xz compression. xz is much smaller but gz is more compatible.

• macOS
• Linux (x64)
• Linux (arm)
• Windows (x64)
• Windows (x86)

Install with Ubuntu / Debian apt-get

$ curl https://cli-assets.heroku.com/install-ubuntu.sh | sh

This version doesn’t autoupdate. Update it manually via apt-get. Use the standalone installation for an autoupdating version of the CLI.

Install for Arch Linux

Install the community-maintained heroku-cli 7.60.1-1:

$ yay -S heroku-cli

Install with npm

The CLI is built with Node.js and installable via npm. Use this manual install method in environments where autoupdating isn’t ideal, or where Heroku doesn’t offer a prebuilt Node.js binary. ARM and BSD must use this installation method. You must have node and npm installed already. This method is also useful if you want fine-grained control over CLI updates such as in a tested script.

$ npm install -g heroku

Verify Your Installation

To verify your CLI installation, use the heroku --version command:

$ heroku --version
heroku/7.0.0 (darwin-x64) node-v8.0.0

The output looks like heroku/x.y.z. If you don’t see that output, and installed the Heroku CLI, check if you have an old heroku gem on your system. Uninstall it with these instructions.

Get Started with the Heroku CLI

After you install the CLI, run the heroku login command. Enter any key to go to your web browser to complete login. The CLI then logs you in automatically.

$ heroku login
heroku: Press any key to open up the browser to login or q to exit
 ›   Warning: If browser does not open, visit
 ›   https://cli-auth.heroku.com/auth/browser/***
heroku: Waiting for login...
Logging in... done
Logged in as me@example.com

If you’d prefer to stay in the CLI to enter your credentials, run heroku login -i.

$ heroku login -i
heroku: Enter your login credentials
Email: me@example.com
Password: ***************
Two-factor code: ********
Logged in as me@heroku.com

The CLI saves your email address and an API token to ~/.netrc for future use. For more information, see Heroku CLI Authentication.

Now you’re ready to create your first Heroku app:

$ cd ~/myapp
$ heroku create
Creating app... done, ⬢ sleepy-meadow-81798
https://sleepy-meadow-81798.herokuapp.com/ | https://git.heroku.com/sleepy-meadow-81798.git

Check out your preferred language’s getting started guide for a comprehensive introduction to deploying your first app. See Heroku CLI Commands for a full list of commands.

Staying Up to Date

The Heroku CLI keeps itself and its plugins (except linked plugins) up to date automatically, unless you installed the Debian/Ubuntu package or used npm install.

When you run a heroku command, a background process checks for the latest available version of the CLI. If a new version is found, it’s downloaded and stored in ~/.local/share/heroku/client. This background check happens at most once every 4 hours.

The heroku binary checks for an up-to-date client in ~/.local/share/heroku/client before using the originally installed client.

Latest Release SHAs

Darwin

• x64

Linux

• arm
• x64

Windows

• x64
• x86

Useful CLI Plugins

CLI plugins allow you to extend your CLI installation. Install a CLI plugin with heroku plugins:install someplugin. See Using CLI Plugins for more information on plugin management.

Here are some useful plugins:

• api — Make ad-hoc API requests (such as heroku api GET /account).
• free - Find all your apps that use free dynos, free Heroku Postgres, or free Heroku Data for Redis plans.
• heroku-builds — View builds, purge the build cache, and create builds from tarballs.
• heroku-repo — Commands to manipulate an app’s Heroku git repository.
• heroku-pg-extras — Provides extra heroku pg:* commands.
• heroku-slugs — Downloads app slugs.
• heroku-kafka — Manage Heroku Kafka.
• heroku-guardian - View various configurations within Heroku that help secure your apps, spaces, and users.
• heroku-papertrail — Display, tail, and search for logs with Papertrail.
• advanced-scheduler — Create and manage your Advanced Scheduler triggers.
• heroku-cron — Create, manage and monitor your Cron To Go jobs using interactive command line or using manifest files in post-deploy scripts.

CLI Architecture

The Heroku CLI is built with the Open CLI Framework (oclif), developed within Heroku / Salesforce. oclif is available as a framework for any developer to build a large or a small CLI. The framework includes a CLI generator, automated documentation creation, and testing infrastructure.

The code for the Heroku CLI is also open source. It does not require Node.js or any other dependencies to run. Unless you install the Debian/Ubuntu package or used npm install, the CLI contains its own Node.js binary that doesn’t conflict with other applications.

Troubleshooting the Heroku CLI

If you’re having issues with the CLI, ensure that you’re using the latest version. If you’re not, try updating with heroku update.

If the CLI fails to update, try uninstalling it, then reinstalling it. Ensure that you don’t have the legacy Heroku Toolbelt or Heroku Ruby gem installed by using which heroku or where heroku (on Windows) to confirm what the heroku command points to. Some users must modify their PATH to include it (/usr/local/bin/heroku for most installations).

If you’re still encountering an issue, you can set the following debugging environment variables to help diagnose it:

You can also check the CLI’s error logfile, stored at one of the following locations depending on your operating system:

If you continue to have problems and the CLI is up to date, or if updating fails for other reasons, reset the CLI by deleting its user directories. These directories get replaced automatically. Deleting them doesn’t log you out but you lose any installed plugins.

First, run heroku plugins to list your installed plugins so you can make sure to reinstall them.

Then, delete the following directories:

Windows:

• %LOCALAPPDATA%\heroku

macOS/Linux/Other:

• ~/.local/share/heroku (or XDG_DATA_HOME if set)
• Either ~/Library/Caches/heroku on macOS, or ~/.cache/heroku on Linux/Other (or XDG_CACHE_HOME if set)

Login Issues

If you’re experiencing issues with logging in, try moving your .netrc file. This file is where the CLI stores credentials:

$ mv ~/.netrc ~/.netrc.backup
$ heroku login

On Windows, the file is named _netrc.

Homebrew-Specific Issues

If you get legacy warnings even with the latest homebrew version of heroku installed, the binary heroku command in your PATH environment variable isn’t pointing to the version that brew installed.

First, run which heroku to see what binary heroku is pointing to. If it isn’t /usr/local/bin/heroku, delete the binary it is pointing to. You can also make /usr/local/bin/ higher up in your PATH environment variable by modifying your ~/.bashrc file or equivalent.

Next, run brew link --overwrite heroku to make sure that /usr/local/bin/heroku is pointing to the new CLI. If you continue to have trouble, run brew doctor to point out any issues with your system.

Apple Silicon Issues

If you’re getting the following error on a machine with an Apple M1 chip, you haven’t installed or declined to install Rosetta 2.

Bad CPU type in executable

Installing Rosetta 2 resolves this issue.

If you don’t want to install Rosetta 2 on your machine, you can install the Heroku npm package globally and use your own Node binary locally. Only v16 of Node has M1 ARM support and npm isn’t the recommended install method.

Uninstall the Heroku CLI

macOS

On macOS, you can uninstall the CLI by typing:

$ rm -rf /usr/local/heroku /usr/local/lib/heroku /usr/local/bin/heroku ~/.local/share/heroku ~/Library/Caches/heroku

Homebrew Installs

If you installed the Heroku CLI using Homebrew, you can uninstall the CLI by typing:

$ brew uninstall heroku
$ rm -rf ~/.local/share/heroku ~/Library/Caches/heroku

Linux

Standalone Install

For standalone installs, you can uninstall the CLI by typing:

$ rm /usr/local/bin/heroku
$ rm -rf /usr/local/lib/heroku /usr/local/heroku
$ rm -rf ~/.local/share/heroku ~/.cache/heroku

Debian and Ubuntu Installs

For Debian/Ubuntu, you can uninstall the CLI by typing:

$ sudo apt-get remove heroku heroku-toolbelt
$ sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/heroku.list

If you have $XDG_DATA_HOME, or $XDG_CACHE_HOME, it uses those variables instead of ~/.local/share, and ~/.cache.

You can remove the release key by running these commands:

$ sudo apt-key list
$ sudo apt-key del KEYFROMABOVE

Windows

On Windows, to uninstall the Heroku CLI:

1. Click Start > Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features.
2. Select Heroku CLI, and then click Uninstall. (Note that the uninstaller is unsigned).

If the uninstall is unsuccessful, manually delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\heroku along with the directory in Program Files.

Uninstall the Legacy heroku Gem

To find out where the executable is, run which.

$ which heroku
/usr/local/heroku/bin/heroku

Ensure the path to the heroku command isn’t in a Ruby gem directory.

If it is, uninstall it and any other heroku gems:

$ gem uninstall heroku --all