Quickstart: install the Mistral CLI and create a project
In this quickstart, you install the Mistral CLI, sign in, check which organization and workspace your commands use, and scaffold a workflows project. It takes about 5 minutes. For what the CLI does, see Mistral CLI.
Before you begin
- A Mistral account with access to Studio.
- A terminal with
curl, and a browser to sign in. For install options, see CLI installation.
1. Install the CLI
Run the installer:
curl -fsSL https://mistral.ai/cli/install.sh | bashAccept the installer's offer to add ~/.mistral/bin to your PATH. It also offers to install Bun, which runs workflows and apps on your machine: accept it too. The PATH change applies to new shells only, so open a new terminal or source the profile that the installer names, then check the version:
source ~/.zshrc # zsh; bash: ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile, fish: ~/.config/fish/config.fish
mistral --version2. Sign in
Sign in through your browser, then check who you are and where your commands run:
mistral login
mistral whoami
mistral context showmistral login opens your browser to sign in. If no organization and workspace are selected yet, it selects the default ones of your account. mistral whoami prints the signed-in identity, and mistral context show prints the active organization and workspace. To use another workspace, run mistral context set.
On a machine without a browser, run mistral login --device. If no OS keychain is available, add --insecure-storage to keep the sign-in in a file. In CI, save an API key with mistral login --api-key -, which reads it from standard input. An API key belongs to one workspace, and mistral apps publish and mistral apps unpublish still need the browser sign-in. Don't commit credentials.
3. Create a project
Scaffold a workflows project with mistral init:
mistral init my-workflow --preset workflow --yes--preset workflow picks the capabilities of a workflows project, and --yes accepts the defaults without asking. To build a full-stack app with a database instead, use --preset app.
You should see
The CLI installs the project dependencies, creates a Git repository, and ends with a summary that starts with:
Created my-workflow: workflows, apps (core included)
cd my-workflowThe new my-workflow directory holds a Python worker in apps/worker and a .env file. The summary also reminds you to set MISTRAL_API_KEY in .env before you run the worker.
If mistral isn't found, open a new terminal: the PATH change from step 1 applies to new shells only.
Clean up
Keep my-workflow for the Workflows quickstart, which starts from this project. Otherwise, delete the directory. To sign out, run mistral logout.