Tanzu CLI Architecture and Configuration

This topic provides information about Tanzu CLI architecture. It also explains how to update your Tanzu CLI configuration.

CLI Architecture

The Tanzu CLI uses a context-scoped, pluggable architecture that lets you connect to servers of multiple types and run the appropriate commands on each. For example, you can use the Tanzu CLI to connect to these Tanzu products:

Tanzu Mission Control (TMC), to perform operations described in Capabilities of the Tanzu Mission Control Plug-ins in the TMC documentation.
Tanzu Applicaton Platform (TAP), to run tanzu apps, tanzu accelerator, and other commands described in Tanzu CLI Overview in the TAP documentation.
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG), as described in Creating and Managing TKG 2.4 Workload Clusters with the Tanzu CLI in the TKG documentation.

Command Groups and Targets

Tanzu CLI commands are organized into command groups. To list available command groups, run tanzu.

The list of available command groups differs based on what Tanzu CLI plugins are installed on your machine, and on what type of server you are currently logged in to. Both of these depend on the Tanzu products that you are using.

For each command group the Tanzu CLI defines a Target, or context type, that associates the set of commands with the type of server that the commands apply to, for example:

Plugins that define commands for Kubernetes clusters have the Target k8s.
Plugins that define commands for TMC commands have the Target tmc.
Plugins that define context-independent commands have the Target global. These plugins are installed automatically with the Tanzu CLI.
Identically-named plugins for different targets let the Tanzu CLI tailor commands under command groups such as tanzu cluster to fit the context.

The tanzu plugin search command lists plugin targets under a TARGET column.

tanzu context commands let you specify a default specific server context for each target, switch targets, and list the contexts for each target using the --target flag.

CLI Core, Plugins, Plugin Groups, and Products

The core CLI has some command groups built in, and CLI plugins extend the CLI with additional command groups that are useful for particular products. Each plugin is an executable binary that packages a group of CLI commands.

Each product designates how its relevant plugins are installed, either standalone or context-scoped:

Standalone plugins are installed explicitly with the tanzu plugin install command.
- The --group option installs all of the standalone plugins needed for a specific product, and tanzu plugin group get lists the plugins.
- Standalone plugins can support install-time operations that you run before a context is created or set.
Context-scoped plugins are installed automatically with the tanzu context create command, as appropriate for the product that creates or registers the context.

A given product’s plugins might be installed all standalone, all context-scoped, or a mix.

This table summarizes how command groups come from the core CLI or plugins:

Source	Examples: `tanzu...`	How Installed
Core	`config`, `plugin`, `help`	Installed with the CLI
Standalone plugins	`apps`, `insight`, and all other TAP plugins; `management-cluster` (TKG)	Install with `tanzu plugin install`
Context-scoped plugins	All TMC plugins; `cluster`, `feature`, and `kubernetes-release` (TKG)	Installed automatically with `tanzu context create`

For a list of Tanzu CLI plugins and commands that they provide, see Command Groups in Tanzu CLI Command Reference.

CLI Configuration

The Tanzu CLI configuration file, ~/.config/tanzu/config.yaml, contains your Tanzu CLI configuration, including:

Sources for CLI plugin discovery
Global and plugin-specific configuration options, or features
Names, contexts, and kubeconfig locations for the servers that the CLI knows about, and which is the current one

You can use the tanzu config set PATH VALUE and tanzu config unset PATH commands to customize your CLI configuration, as described in the table below. Running these commands updates the ~/.config/tanzu/config.yaml file.

Path	Value	Description
`env.VARIABLE`	Your variable value; for example, `Standard_D2s_v3`	This path sets or unsets global environment variables for the Tanzu CLI. For example, `tanzu config set env.AZURE_NODE_MACHINE_TYPE Standard_D2s_v3`. Variables set by running `tanzu config set` persist until you unset them with `tanzu config unset`. For a list of variables that you can set, see Configuration File Variable Reference.
`features.global.FEATURE`	`true` or `false`	This path activates or deactivates global features in your CLI configuration. Use only if you want to change or restore the defaults. For example, `tanzu config set features.global.context-aware-cli-for-plugins true`.
`features.PLUGIN.FEATURE`	`true` or `false`	This path activates or deactivates plugin-specific features in your CLI configuration. Use only if you want to change or restore the defaults; some of these features are experimental and intended for evaluation and test purposes only. For example, running `tanzu config set features.cluster.dual-stack-ipv4-primary true` sets the `dual-stack-ipv4-primary` feature of the `cluster` CLI plugin to `true`. By default, only production-ready plugin features are set to `true` in the CLI.
`unstable-versions`	`none` (default), `alpha`, `experimental`, and `all`	This path sets the `clientOptions.cli.unstableVersionSelector` property in the CLI configuration file. By default, the Tanzu CLI uses only stable versions of CLI plugins. You can modify this behavior by setting `unstable-versions` to `alpha`, `experimental`, or `all`: `none`: Allows only stable plugin versions. `clientOptions.cli.unstableVersionSelector` is set to `none` by default. `alpha`: Allows stable and alpha plugin versions. `experimental`: Allows stable and pre-release plugin versions, including alpha versions. `all`: Allows all plugin versions, including stable, pre-release, and build-tagged versions. To restore the default, set `unstable-versions` to `none`.
Deprecated: `bomRepo`, `compatibilityFilePath`, `edition`	N/A	Retained for backward-compatibility with older versions of the Tanzu CLI that were bundled with TKG. Do not set.

Features

Name	Default	Description
Global features:
`tkr-version-v1alpha3-beta`	`false`	Sets the API version for the `kubernetes-release` plugin to `v1alpha3`. Do not set; reserved for future use.
`management-cluster` plugin features:
`aws-instance-types-exclude-arm`	`true`	Excludes ARM-based instance types from the list of available instance types in the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid installer interface when deploying a management cluster to AWS. This feature is set by Tanzu Kubernetes Grid; do not set manually.
`dual-stack-ipv4-primary`	`false`	(Technical Preview, vSphere only) Allows you to deploy dual-stack clusters, with IPv4 as the primary protocol. This feature is in development.
`dual-stack-ipv6-primary`	`false`	(Technical Preview, vSphere only) Allows you to deploy dual-stack clusters, with IPv6 as the primary protocol. This feature is in development.
`export-from-confirm`	`true`	Activates the Export Configuration button in the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid installer interface.
`import`	`false`	Allows you to import the cluster configuration file into the Tanzu Kubernetes Grid installer interface. This feature is not available in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid v1.6+.
`standalone-cluster-mode`	`false`	Allows you to deploy standalone clusters in Tanzu Community Edition. This feature is not available in Tanzu Kubernetes Grid.
`cluster` plugin features:
`allow-legacy-cluster`	`false`	Allows you to create plan-based clusters (legacy). By default, the Tanzu CLI creates class-based clusters.
`auto-apply-generated-clusterclass-based-configuration`	`false`	Auto-applies the class-based cluster configuration generated by the Tanzu CLI when you pass a legacy cluster configuration file to `tanzu cluster create`. When set to `false`, `tanzu cluster create` saves the configuration to a file without creating the cluster.
`dual-stack-ipv4-primary`	`false`	(Technical Preview, vSphere only) See `management-cluster` plugin features, above.
`dual-stack-ipv6-primary`	`false`	(Technical Preview, vSphere only) See `management-cluster` plugin features, above.
`network-separation-beta`	Experimental. Do not enable. Reserved for future use.
`package` plugin features:
`kctrl-command-tree`	`true`	Activates or deactivates `kctrl` mode for `tanzu package` commands. This mode provides extended functionality for observability and debugging. For more information, see tanzu package with kctrl.

Activating and Deactivating Features

To activate a CLI feature:
- To activate a global feature, run:
```
tanzu config set features.global.FEATURE true
```
  Where FEATURE is the name of the feature that you want to activate.
- To activate a plugin feature, run:
```
tanzu config set features.PLUGIN.FEATURE true
```
  Where:
  - PLUGIN is the name of the CLI plugin. For example, cluster or management-cluster.
  - FEATURE is the name of the feature that you want to activate.
To deactivate a CLI feature:
- To deactivate a global feature, run:
```
tanzu config set features.global.FEATURE false
```
  Where FEATURE is the name of the feature that you want to deactivate.
- To deactivate a plugin feature, run:
```
tanzu config set features.PLUGIN.FEATURE false
```
  Where:
  - PLUGIN is the name of the CLI plugin. For example, cluster or management-cluster.
  - FEATURE is the name of the feature that you want to deactivate.