lossless-monorepo/agent-skills/chroma-agent-skills/src/chroma-cloud/general/cli

Chroma CLI

The Chroma CLI lets you authenticate to Chroma Cloud, manage profiles, and create or connect to Cloud databases for your active profile.

Install

pip install chromadb

Login

Authenticate with Chroma Cloud:

chroma login

This opens a browser for authentication and stores your credentials locally.

Create a database

Create a new database on Chroma Cloud. If you don’t provide a name, the CLI will prompt you to choose one. If a database with the provided name already exists, the CLI will error.

chroma db create <db_name>

Connect to a database

The connect command outputs a connection code snippet for your Chroma Cloud database. If you don’t provide the name or language, the CLI will prompt you to choose. The name argument is always assumed to be the first, so you don’t need to include the --name flag.

The output code snippet will already have the API key of your profile set for the client construction.

chroma db connect <db_name> [--language python/JS/TS]

Add Chroma environment variables (CHROMA_API_KEY, CHROMA_TENANT, and CHROMA_DATABASE) to a .env file in your current working directory. Creates the file if it doesn’t exist:

chroma db connect <db_name> --env-file

Or output the environment variables to the terminal:

chroma db connect <db_name> --env-vars

Setting these environment variables allows the CloudClient to be instantiated with no arguments.

When to use this topic

Use this topic when the user needs to:

• log into Chroma Cloud
• create or list Cloud databases
• write Cloud environment variables into a .env file
• switch between Cloud profiles or teams

If the user only needs to run open source Chroma locally, use the CLI topic from chroma-local instead.

List databases

List all databases under your current profile:

chroma db list

Delete a database

Deleting a database cannot be undone. The CLI will ask you to confirm the deletion.

chroma db delete <db_name>

Profile Management

A profile persists the credentials (API key and tenant ID) for authenticating with Chroma Cloud. Each time you use chroma login, the CLI creates a profile for the team you logged in with. All profiles are saved in ~/.chroma/credentials.

The CLI tracks your “active” profile in ~/.chroma/config.json. This is the profile used for all CLI commands with Chroma Cloud. For example, if you logged into your “staging” team and set it as your active profile, running chroma db create my-db will create my-db under your “staging” team.

Show active profile

chroma profile show

List profiles

chroma profile list

Switch active profile

chroma profile use <profile_name>

Rename a profile

chroma profile rename <old_name> <new_name>

Delete a profile

The CLI will ask for confirmation if you are deleting your active profile. If so, use chroma profile use to set a new active profile afterward, otherwise all future Chroma Cloud CLI commands will fail.

chroma profile delete <profile_name>