Unit 3: CLI & operations
Time: ~70 minutes • Lessons: 7 • Modality: CLI
Everything Bowire does from the command line — install and drive it, replay and test in CI, expose it to an AI agent, front an upstream as a reverse-proxy, deploy it, observe it, and keep workspaces tidy. This unit is CLI-only: where the workbench UI is the natural surface (the invoke walkthrough, the Intercept rail, Flow authoring) it links to the UI unit rather than opening it inline.
Drive the CLI against the single-plugin demos in Bowire.Samples/protocols/ (Rest.PetStore, Grpc.Greeter, …) — they don't embed Bowire, so they're the natural bowire --url targets. The richer Harbor domain works too.
Lessons
| Lesson | Topic | What You'll Learn |
|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | Install & first call | dotnet tool install, bowire --url, list / describe / call, repeatable --url |
| 3.2 | Mock & test in CI | bowire mock, bowire test (recording + Flow), --junit / --report, GitHub Actions |
| 3.3 | AI agents over MCP | bowire mcp serve (stdio), the tool surface, Claude Desktop wiring, the security gate |
| 3.4 | Reverse-proxy interception | bowire interceptor fronting an upstream; feeds the Intercept rail; TLS + CA |
| 3.5 | Deployment patterns | Container / systemd, layered config (appsettings → BOWIRE_* → flags), reverse-proxy in front |
| 3.6 | Observability & operations | --telemetry + OTLP, Bowire-domain metrics, plugin health, backup, per-plugin disable |
| 3.7 | Workspace hygiene | Soft vs hard deletion, Trash retention, undo semantics |
Why this unit
The CLI is what turns Bowire from a laptop debugger into a headless, scriptable, deployable tool — the surface every integrator, DevOps and platform engineer lives in.
Next: → Lesson 3.1: Install & first call