Installation

SwarmCLI Business Edition ships as a single static Go binary. The executable on disk is named swarmcli — not swarmcli-be — because BE is a strict superset of CE: the OSS feature set is included unchanged. Aliases, scripts, and CI invocations from a CE installation continue to work without modification when you switch to BE.

The package/formula/image names are swarmcli-be, so the package manager can offer both editions side by side. They install the same binary name, so you can have either CE or BE at any time, but not both. See CE vs BE below.

Channels

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew install Eldara-Tech/tap/swarmcli-be

The formula is hosted at Eldara-Tech/homebrew-tap. It conflicts with the CE swarmcli formula; brew will refuse to install both at once and will offer to remove the other one.

Scoop (Windows)

scoop bucket add eldara https://github.com/Eldara-Tech/scoop-bucket
scoop install swarmcli-be

Docker

docker pull eldaratech/swarmcli-be:latest
docker run --rm -it \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  -v "$HOME/.docker/contexts:/root/.docker/contexts" \
  -v "$HOME/.config/swarmcli:/root/.config/swarmcli" \
  eldaratech/swarmcli-be:latest

The container runs as root (matching the upstream docker:N-cli base, so the mounted Docker socket works without --group-add). Mounting ~/.docker/contexts and ~/.config/swarmcli keeps your Docker contexts and license file persistent across container runs.

Available tags: latest, vX.Y.Z. Multi-arch images cover linux/amd64 and linux/arm64.

Raw binary

Download platform archives from the Releases page. Each release ships:

• swarmcli-be_<version>_<os>_<arch>.tar.gz (Linux/macOS/FreeBSD) or .zip (Windows)
• checksums.txt — SHA-256 of every archive

Verify and install:

sha256sum -c checksums.txt --ignore-missing
tar -xzf swarmcli-be_<version>_linux_amd64.tar.gz
install -m 0755 swarmcli /usr/local/bin/swarmcli

Build matrix per release:

OS	Architectures
Linux	amd64, arm64, arm (v6, v7), 386
macOS	universal (amd64 + arm64)
Windows	amd64, arm64, 386

First run

swarmcli

If no license is present, you'll see a startup prompt asking for a license key (or to continue in Community Edition mode). The detail of every state the prompt can show is in License — Activation. Once you have a valid license, every subsequent run starts silently.

If your terminal does not look right (colors, key handling), check that your TERM is set to a 256-color value — SwarmCLI expects xterm-256color or equivalent.

Verifying version and edition

There is no --version flag today. Two ways to check:

• Inside the TUI: the version is shown in the header bar; :license additionally shows license status (see License).
• In the log file: every run writes one startup line. After running the binary at least once, look for the most recent entry:

grep -o 'swarmcli[^"]*version=[^ "]*' ~/.local/state/swarmcli/app.log \
  | tail -n 1
# → swarmcli-be version=v1.4.0       ← BE binary
# → swarmcli version=v1.4.0          ← CE binary (also has edition=ce)

The log-line prefix (swarmcli-be vs swarmcli ) says which build you have, regardless of whether a licence verified. swarmcli version says the same thing on stdout:

$ swarmcli version
1.14.0 (business build, chart engine 1.14.0)

CE and BE are one download

There is no separate Business Edition download to switch to. One release publishes two artefacts under one tag, and the plain name is the full product:

	swarmcli	swarmcli-oss
License	this repository's code is Apache 2.0; the licensed code is commercial	wholly Apache 2.0
Contains	everything, with Business Edition features inert until a licence verifies	the Community Edition, and nothing else
Binary on disk	swarmcli	swarmcli (same name)
Get it	brew install swarmcli, scoop install swarmcli, eldaratech/swarmcli:<tag>	swarmcli-oss on either, or eldaratech/swarmcli:<tag>-oss

So activating Business Edition is installing a licence, not installing a different program. If you already run swarmcli from the Homebrew tap, the Scoop bucket, the Docker image or a release archive, you have the build a key unlocks — see License.

swarmcli-oss exists for anyone who needs an artefact that is verifiably open source: a distribution packager, an air-gapped compliance review, or a contributor checking what they built. It is not a cut-down edition — it is the whole Community Edition. Editions is the fuller account, including how the build proves which one it is.

Before the editions split, Business Edition shipped as separate swarmcli-be packages and an eldaratech/swarmcli-be image. Those keep receiving the same build for a deprecation window, so nothing breaks if you track one — but swarmcli is where they lead now.

Upgrade

brew upgrade swarmcli-be          # Homebrew
scoop update swarmcli-be          # Scoop
docker pull eldaratech/swarmcli-be:latest   # Docker

For binary installs, replace the file on disk with the new archive's contents.

The compatibility matrix between BE, the bundled CE codebase, and the agent/rbac-proxy versions is published in each release's notes — see Releases.

Upgrading the binary does not change an already-deployed infra stack. To refresh the agent/rbac-proxy images in place, run :bootstrap --upgrade. A stack first deployed before application-layer mTLS (encrypted agent-net) needs a one-time, non-destructive :bootstrap --migrate instead — see Migration.