Install astro with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository

Commands and aliases

• astro

Project history

The CLI grew out of Astronomer's Airflow platform tooling and was distributed publicly as the astro-cli repository. Its README describes it as a command-line interface for data orchestration that works with Astronomer products, and its release notes mark all releases before 1.0.0 as beta. Version 1.0.0 was published in May 2022 as the converged Astro CLI release, while Astronomer's own CLI release notes document the transition from older astrocloud command names to the standardized astro login, astro logout, astro dev init, and deployment commands.

The tool's center of gravity is local developer experience for Airflow: astro dev init creates a project skeleton, astro dev start runs the Airflow stack locally in containers, and deployment/workspace commands talk to Astronomer APIs. Later releases added Windows package-manager support, organization and context switching, richer config commands, and deployment inspection/logging features.

Adoption history

Homebrew packages the CLI as astro and the upstream README documents brew install astro for macOS, winget install -e --id Astronomer.Astro for Windows, and an install.astronomer.io shell installer for Linux. That multi-channel distribution matters because Airflow teams often need the same CLI in laptops, CI, and enterprise Windows workstations.

Adoption is tied to Astronomer's hosted Astro and Astronomer Software/Private Cloud products rather than being a general Airflow replacement. The CLI became the user-facing packaging point for Astronomer's Airflow workflow: initialize a project, run it locally, test DAGs, and deploy to a managed Deployment.

How it is used

Typical package usage starts with brew install astro, then astro dev init in an empty project directory and astro dev start to build and run local Airflow containers. The generated project includes dags, tests, Dockerfile, requirements.txt, packages.txt, plugins, include, and an .astro/config.yaml file for project settings.

Astro CLI stores project settings in .astro/config.yaml and global settings in a user-level Astro config file. Astronomer documentation notes project-level settings such as webserver and Postgres ports and says global configuration is stored centrally with the executable, for example under ~/.astro/config.yaml on Unix-like systems. Login-related context and cached identity state also live in the user-level config.

Why package nerds care

For package nerds, astro is a good example of a cloud-product CLI that still earns a normal package-manager slot because its heavy dependencies are external services and container runtimes, not vendored platform SDKs. The package is mostly a single command surface, but it orchestrates Docker/Podman, generated project files, Airflow commands, and authenticated API calls.

The formula is also notable because it has to track a fast-moving SaaS CLI while preserving enough compatibility for CI images and developer laptops. Astronomer's docs warn that backward compatibility is guaranteed only between matching minor versions of the platform and CLI, which makes package version selection operationally important.

Timeline

• 2021: Public beta-era Astro CLI releases were already being published from the astronomer/astro-cli repository.
• 2022-05-27: Astro CLI v1.0.0 was published as the converged v1 release.
• 2022-06-28: Astronomer documented Astro CLI 1.2.0 and the standardized astro command names.
• 2022-10-27: Astro CLI v1.6.0 added documented winget installation support for Windows.
• 2026: Astronomer documentation continues to position Astro CLI as the command reference and local development tool for Astro projects.

Related projects

• Apache Airflow is the workflow engine Astro CLI packages around for local and managed development.
• Docker or Podman provide the local container runtime used by astro dev commands.
• Astronomer Astro and Astronomer Software/Private Cloud are the platform targets for deployment and context commands.

Sources

• https://github.com/astronomer/astro-cli#readme
• https://github.com/astronomer/astro-cli/releases/tag/v1.0.0
• https://github.com/astronomer/astro-cli/releases/tag/v1.6.0
• https://www.astronomer.io/docs/astro/cli/configure-cli
• https://www.astronomer.io/docs/astro/cli/develop-project
• https://www.astronomer.io/docs/astro/cli/release-notes