Commands

This section describe the Conan built-in commands, like conan install or conan search.

It is also possible to create user custom commands, visit custom commands reference and these custom command examples

Consumer commands:

• conan cache: Return the path of recipes and packages in the cache

• conan config: Manage Conan configuration (remotes, settings, plugins, etc)

• conan graph: Obtain information about the dependency graph without fetching binaries

• conan inspect: Inspect a conanfile.py to return the public fields

• conan install: Install dependencies

• conan list: List recipes, revisions and packages in the local cache or in remotes

• conan lock: Create and manage lockfiles

• conan pkglist: Manipulate package lists, merge them or find packages in remotes.

• conan profile: Display and manage profile files

• conan remove: Remove packages from the local cache or from remotes

• conan remote: Add, remove, login/logout and manage remote server

• conan search: Search packages matching a name

• conan version: Give information about the Conan client version

Creator commands:

• conan build: Install package and call its build method

• conan create: Create a package from a recipe

• conan download: Download (without install) a single conan package from a remote server.

• conan editable: Allows working with a package in user folder

• conan export: Export a recipe to the Conan package cache

• conan export-pkg: Create a package directly from pre-compiled binaries

• conan new: Create a new recipe from a predefined template

• conan source: Calls the source() method

• conan test: Test a package

• conan upload: Upload packages from the local cache to a specified remote

Commands Output to stdout and stderr

Conan commands output information following a deliberate design choice that aligns with common practices in many CLI tools and the POSIX standard:

• stdout: For final command results (e.g., JSON, HTML).

• stderr: For diagnostic output, including logs, warnings, errors, and progress messages.

Redirecting Output to Files

You can redirect Conan output to files using shell redirection:

$ conan install . --format=json > output.json

Alternatively, use the --out-file argument (available since Conan 2.12.0) to specify an output file directly:

$ conan install . --format=json --out-file=output.json

Command formatters

Almost all the commands have the parameter --format xxxx which is used to apply an output conversion. The command formatters help users see the command output in a different way that could fit better with their needs. Here, there are only some of the most important ones whose details are worthy of having a separate section.

• graph-info formatter: Show the graph information in JSON format. It’s used by several commands.