Running in CI

The CLI runs unattended without a wrapper, which is the point of it in a pipeline.

Authenticate with an environment variable

Set API_TOKEN. There is no login step, no prompt, and nothing stored on the runner.

export API_TOKEN=$SCREENLY_API_TOKEN
screenly screen list -o json

GitHub Actions

There is a published action:

- uses: screenly/cli@master
  with:
    screenly_api_token: ${{ secrets.SCREENLY_API_TOKEN }}
    cli_commands: edge-app deploy

cli_commands takes any command, so the same step deploys an app, uploads an asset, or reassigns a playlist. cli_version pins a version if you would rather not track the latest.

Anything that can run a binary works the same way: GitLab CI, CircleCI, Jenkins.

The thing to get right

Scope the token. A pipeline token carries the permissions of whoever created it, and it lives in a secret store that more people can read than you might assume.

Create it from an account with the access the pipeline actually needs, name it after the pipeline rather than the person, and revoke it when the pipeline is retired. See API tokens.

Deploying an app from a pipeline

The natural fit: your app is code in a repository, and a push deploys it to every screen running it.

screenly edge-app validate
screenly edge-app deploy

Validate first. It catches a malformed manifest before the deploy reaches any screens.