CLI

We've launched a CLI for Buttondown!

Try it now:

pnpx @buttondown/cli login

Why build a CLI?

We've put a lot of effort into making the Buttondown API as powerful and flexible as possible, and have resisted the urge to build "yes-and" surfaces on top of it since it felt like adding surface area without commensurate value: having a Python wrapper around our API is nice, but it doesn't actually accomplish anything that twenty lines of boilerplate code can't.

Similarly, rather than be yet another CLI that acts as a glorified wrapper around the OpenAPI spec, we really wanted a CLI to be purpose-driven and accomplish something that would be otherwise onerous or impossible for an average user to build. In this case, we wanted to build a file-first sync engine for your entire newsletter. You can bidirectionally sync emails, automations, images and attachments, and much more as soon as we figure out when to build it and whether or not it's useful.

There's still a lot of functionality planned with the CLI: support for automations, attachments, and surveys will be coming soon. We also want to replace the easy-to-set-up-but-vaguely-janky API key-based auth with OAuth, like the big boys do.

But our philosophy has always been to release things not when they're finished, but when their presence is valuable enough to warrant their existence. Please take a look, give it a spin, and let us know what you think.