Skip to main content
SUBMIT A PRSUBMIT AN ISSUElast edit: Mar 03, 2025

Install BTCLI

This page contains installation details for btcli, the Bittensor CLI.

Prerequisite​

To install btcli, you must have Python version 3.9-3.12

See: https://github.com/opentensor/btcli/blob/main/setup.py#L91-L94

Developer reference​

For a full developer reference, see the Bittensor CLI reference document.

Install on macOS and Linux​

Install from Python Package Indexer​

Check for the latest release at the Python Package Index: https://pypi.org/project/bittensor-cli/.

Use pip to install the desired version:

pip install bittensor-cli==9.1.0 # Use latest or desired version

Verify your installation and its version by running:

btcli --version

Example output:

BTCLI version: 9.1.0
Update frequently!

Check frequently to make sure you are using the latest version of btcli.

Install from source​

  1. Create and activate a virtual environment.

    Create and activate a virtual environment
    For Ubuntu-Linux users

    If you are using Ubuntu-Linux, the script will prompt for sudo access to install all required apt-get packages.

    python3 -m venv btcli_venv
    source btcli_venv/bin/activate

  2. Clone the Bittensor CLI repo.

    git clone https://github.com/opentensor/btcli.git

  3. cd into btcli directory.

    cd btcli

  4. Install

    pip3 install .

Install on Windows​

To install and run Bittensor SDK on Windows you must install WSL 2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) on Windows and select Ubuntu Linux distribution.

After you installed the above, follow the same installation steps described above in Install on macOS and Linux.

Limited support on Windows

While wallet transactions like delegating, transfer, registering, staking can be performed on a Windows machine using WSL 2, the mining and validating operations are not recommended and are not supported on Windows machines.

Verify the installation​

btcli --version

which will give you the below output:

BTCLI version: <version number>

You will see the version number you installed in place of <version number>.

Configuration​

You can set the commonly used values, such as your hotkey and coldkey names, the default chain URL or the network name you use, and more, in config.yml. You can override these values by explicitly passing them in the command line for any btcli command.

Example config file​

The default location of the config file is: ~/.bittensor/config.yml. An example of a config.yml is shown below:

chain: ws://127.0.0.1:9945
network: local
no_cache: False
wallet_hotkey: hotkey-user1
wallet_name: coldkey-user1
wallet_path: ~/.bittensor/wallets
metagraph_cols:
  ACTIVE: true
  AXON: true
  COLDKEY: true
  CONSENSUS: true
  DIVIDENDS: true
  EMISSION: true
  HOTKEY: true
  INCENTIVE: true
  RANK: true
  STAKE: true
  TRUST: true
  UID: true
  UPDATED: true
  VAL: true
  VTRUST: true
alert

If both chain and network config values are present in the config.yml, then chain has the higher precedence. The the btcli command uses the chain value.

For more help:

btcli config --help