Setup

The distil CLI is how you drive the platform. Everything on this site assumes it’s installed unless a page says otherwise.

Install the CLI

curl -fsSL https://cli-assets.distillabs.ai/install.sh | sh

The script writes one binary to ~/.local/bin/distil. It changes nothing else.

Check it answers:

distil --version

If your shell can’t find the binary, add ~/.local/bin to your PATH and try again.

Create your account

You don’t need to visit the website first. From the terminal:

distil signup

That opens the sign-up page in your browser and hands the session back to the CLI when you’re done, so you finish signed in. There’s no separate login step and no API key to copy. Confirm it worked:

distil whoami

If you already have an account, distil auth signs you in the same way. Signing in without a browser, and authenticating against the REST API, are covered in Account and authentication.

Keep it current

The platform moves quickly and the CLI moves with it. Update in place:

distil update

These docs describe 0.25.0, so check your version before trusting a flag.

Supported platforms

Platform	Supported
Linux (x86_64)	Yes
macOS (Intel)	Yes
macOS (Apple Silicon)	Yes
Windows	No

There’s no Windows binary, and some environments don’t permit new executables at all. Use the REST API instead. It reaches the same platform, creates the same entities, and accepts the same ids. On Windows you can also run the CLI inside WSL.

Command-line JSON

Several examples in these docs pipe --output json through jq. You don’t need it to use the platform, but status checks and metrics are much easier to read with it.

brew install jq        # macOS
apt-get install jq     # Debian / Ubuntu

Using distil labs from Claude

The distil labs Claude skill teaches Claude to drive this workflow with you: choosing a task type, preparing data, running the pipeline, and analysing what comes back.

In Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/distil-labs/distil-cli-skill
/plugin install distil-cli@distil-cli-skill

In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop:

1. Download the skill as a ZIP
2. Go to claude.ai → Settings → Capabilities → Skills
3. Click “Upload skill” and select the ZIP file
4. Toggle the skill ON

Environment	What Claude can do
Claude Code	The full workflow: choose a task type, prepare data, run commands, train, analyse, deploy
Claude.ai	Preparation and analysis: choose a task type and write your data files. You run the commands yourself.

Next

Set up your account and authenticate.