Intallation

Creating a CLI project from scratch

To kickstart a new project with the CLI, we recommend running npx checkly init. But you can also add the CLI from scratch with the following steps.

Prerequisites

• Node.js v16.x or higher.
• A text editor like Visual Studio Code.

Installation

First, install the CLI.

Terminal

npm i --save-dev checkly

To use TypeScript, also install ts-node and typescript:

Terminal

npm i --save-dev ts-node typescript

Create a minimal checkly.config.ts (or checkly.config.js) at the root of your project. We recommend using TypeScript.

TypeScript

import { defineConfig } from 'checkly'
import { Frequency } from 'checkly/constructs'

export default defineConfig({
 projectName: 'Website Monitoring',
 logicalId: 'website-monitoring-1',
 repoUrl: 'https://github.com/acme/website',
 checks: {
   activated: true,
   muted: false,
   runtimeId: '2025.04',
   frequency: Frequency.EVERY_5M,
   locations: ['us-east-1', 'eu-central-1'],
   tags: ['website', 'api'],
   checkMatch: '**/__checks__/**/*.check.ts',
   ignoreDirectoriesMatch: [],
   browserChecks: {
     frequency: Frequency.EVERY_10M,
     testMatch: '**/__checks__/**/*.spec.ts',
   },
 },
 cli: {
   runLocation: 'eu-central-1',
 }
})

JavaScript

const defineConfig = require('checkly')
const { Frequency } = require('checkly/constructs')

const config = {
 projectName: 'Website Monitoring',
 logicalId: 'website-monitoring-1',
 repoUrl: 'https://github.com/acme/website',
 checks: {
   activated: true,
   muted: false,
   runtimeId: '2025.04',
   frequency: Frequency.EVERY_5M,
   locations: ['us-east-1', 'eu-central-1'],
   tags: ['website', 'api'],
   checkMatch: '**/__checks__/**/*.check.js',
   ignoreDirectoriesMatch: [],
   browserChecks: {
     frequency: Frequency.EVERY_10M,
     testMatch: '**/__checks__/**/*.spec.js',
   },
 },
 cli: {
   runLocation: 'eu-central-1',
 }
}

module.exports = config;

Use the CLI to authenticate and pick a Checkly account. Make sure you have signed up for a free account on checklyhq.com before hand or just sign up for a new account straight from the terminal.

Terminal

npx checkly login

Direct download

If you cannot access the npm registry directly, you can also download the Checkly CLI via our CDN.

• MacOS / Darwin
• Windows
• Linux

The download is a zipped folder containing a full installation of the boilerplate example project. You will find the following files and folders:

• a checkly.config.ts file.
• a package.json file including the necessary Typescript dependencies.
• a node_modules directory with all dependencies pre-installed.
• a __checks__ folder with some example checks.

If you want to move the CLI and its constructs to a different, already existing Node.js project, just copy the full contents of the node_modules folder to your project and manually add a checkly.config.ts file.

Using a Proxy Server

The CLI respects the common HTTP_PROXY environment variable for any outbound traffic, like running npx checkly test or npx checkly deploy.

Terminal

HTTP_PROXY=https://proxy-url npx checkly test

The CLI communicates with the following domains if you need to allow-list them in your proxy:

• api.checklyhq.com
• events.checklyhq.com