Pantheon Terminus CLI Skill

Pantheon Terminus CLI

Terminus is the command-line interface for advanced interaction with the Pantheon platform. It can do almost everything the Dashboard can, plus scripting and automation: create sites, manage Multidev environments, clone environments, apply upstream updates, deploy code, and run Drush/WP-CLI commands remotely.

This skill captures the Pantheon Terminus Guide verbatim (CC BY-SA 4.0, © Pantheon Systems, Inc.) into the reference files below. Prose is faithful to the source; only Docusaurus frontmatter and JSX components were normalized to standard Markdown.

Prefer the live binary over memory. Terminus releases often. For exact flags, run terminus <command> --help or terminus list --raw locally, and check https://github.com/pantheon-systems/terminus/releases for the current version.

Quick Start

# macOS (recommended)
brew install pantheon-systems/external/terminus

# Linux / Windows (WSL) / macOS-without-brew — Terminus 4 (PHP 8.2+)
mkdir -p ~/terminus && cd ~/terminus
curl -L https://github.com/pantheon-systems/terminus/releases/latest/download/terminus.phar --output terminus
chmod +x terminus
sudo ln -s ~/terminus/terminus /usr/local/bin/terminus

# Authenticate (machine token from dashboard.pantheon.io → Account → Machine Tokens)
terminus auth:login --email=<email@example.com> --machine-token=<machine_token>

# Subsequent sessions only need the email
terminus auth:login --email=<email@example.com>

Requires: PHP 8.2+, Composer, Git, OpenSSH 7.8+. Terminus 4.x supports PHP 8.2–8.5. (Terminus 3.x is the last line supporting PHP 7.4–8.3 and is not compatible with PHP 8.4.)

Command Format

terminus command:subcommand <site>.<env>      # e.g. terminus env:clear-cache my-site.live
terminus command:subcommand -h                 # help for any command
terminus list --raw                            # all commands, one per line

<site>.<env> is optional if you run Terminus from inside a checked-out Pantheon site repo on the matching branch — it auto-detects. <site> is the machine name (e.g. my-site), <env> is dev / test / live / a Multidev name.

Cheatsheet — Most-Used Commands

| Task | Command | |------|---------| | Sites you can access | terminus site:list | | Site info / UUID | terminus site:info <site> | | Env status & config | terminus env:info <site>.<env> | | Connection mode | terminus connection:set <site>.dev git\|sftp | | Commit SFTP changes | terminus env:commit <site>.dev --message="..." | | Deploy Dev→Test / Test→Live | terminus env:deploy <site>.test --sync-content --note="..." | | Clear cache | terminus env:clear-cache <site>.<env> | | Clone db+files between envs | terminus env:clone-content <site>.live dev | | List/apply upstream updates | terminus upstream:updates:list <site> → terminus upstream:updates:apply <site> | | Backup | terminus backup:create <site>.live | | Restore latest backup | terminus backup:restore <site>.live | | Multidev create / delete | terminus multidev:create <site>.dev <name> / terminus multidev:delete <site>.<name> | | Run Drush remotely | terminus remote:drush <site>.<env> -- <drush_cmd> | | Run WP-CLI remotely | terminus remote:wp <site>.<env> -- <wp_cmd> | | Watch workflows | terminus workflow:watch <site> | | Whoami / logout | terminus auth:whoami / terminus auth:logout |

Non-interactive scripts: add -y / --yes to skip confirms, or -n for non-interactive mode.

Workflow Snippets

# Apply core upstream updates (Git mode required on Dev)
terminus env:commit <site>.dev --message="WIP"     # save SFTP work first
terminus connection:set <site>.dev git
terminus upstream:updates:apply <site>

# Deploy a change up the chain
terminus env:deploy <site>.test --sync-content --note="Update core + contrib"
terminus env:clear-cache <site>.test
terminus env:deploy <site>.live --note="Update core + contrib"
terminus env:clear-cache <site>.live

Plugins

terminus self:plugin:install <vendor/project>   # also accepts a local path
terminus self:plugin:list
terminus self:plugin:update <vendor/project>
terminus self:plugin:uninstall <vendor/project>
terminus self:plugin:create <name> --project-name=<vendor>/<name>

CI Authentication

Cache the session to avoid Auth0 rate limits — log in once, then reuse $HOME/.terminus/cache/session across jobs. Provider-specific pipelines (with caching) are in references/ci-integrations.md.

Reference Files

All five files are verbatim extracts from the Pantheon Terminus Guide, reorganized by topic. Each begins with a source/provenance header.

| File | Covers | Source files | |------|--------|--------------| | references/install.md | Install, auth, updates, supported versions, v3/v4 migration notes, changelog | 02, 10, 11, 12, 13 | | references/commands.md | Full command directory (158 commands from terminus list), config file, plugin install, plugin directory | 04, 09, 06, 08 | | references/examples.md | Apply updates, deploy, reset Dev to Live, switch upstreams, author/test plugins | 03, 07 | | references/scripting.md | Auth for CI, bash variables, example scripts (backup all sites, PHP-version CSV) | 05 | | references/ci-integrations.md | GitHub Actions, GitLab, CircleCI, Bitbucket pipelines with session caching | 05, ci/* |

Version & Compatibility

Current line: Terminus 4.x (PHP 8.2–8.5). Installed locally at the time of scraping: 4.3.1; latest release per GitHub API: 4.3.2.
Terminus 3.x: PHP 7.4–8.3 only, not compatible with PHP 8.4. Reaching/has reached EOL — see the support matrix in references/install.md.
Each major/minor is supported for one year after the next release; then EOL. See https://docs.pantheon.io/terminus/supported-terminus.

Keywords

Pantheon, Terminus, terminus, CLI, Pantheon CLI, machine token, auth:login, site:list, env:deploy, upstream:updates, multidev, remote:drush, remote:wp, backup, deploy, Pantheon CI, Pantheon GitHub Actions, Pantheon GitLab, Pantheon CircleCI, Pantheon Bitbucket, WebOps, Drupal, WordPress

Agent Skills: Pantheon Terminus CLI

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