06.a ~ Admin Commands

init

Command: mcdev init

Alias: -

Creates the basic configuration file .mcdevrc.json and .mcdev-auth.json in your project directory. You may add more credentials by re-running the same command again, e.g. to add production and sandbox credentials next to each other.

In addition, it initializes an npm package for you, installs recommended npm dependencies and places our default IDE configuration files for ESLint, Prettier, Git and VSCode into your project directory.

The initialization ends with the creation of your Git repository and the first backup of your SFMC instance.

Example - initialize project / add additional credentials:

mcdev init

Example - update credentials:

mcdev init yourCredentialName

The interactive setup will ask you for an EID (Parent MID), Client ID and Client Secret of an installed package. It also asks for the Authentication Base Uri. Each installed package on a given SFMC instance shares the same tenant sub-domain and always shows you 3 domains (Auth, REST and SOAP).

Example URL: https://mcg123abcysykllg-0321cbs8bbt64.auth.marketingcloudapis.com

Note to CLI experts:

You can run this command without the interactive wizard asking questions using the --skipInteraction (or short--yes/--y) flag. In this case, you need to provide a few values in the command:

mcdev init --y.credentialName "yourCustomCredentialName" --y.client_id "yourClientIdHere" --y.client_secret "yourClientSecretHere" --y.auth_url "https://yourTenantSubdomainHere.auth.marketingcloudapis.com/" --y.gitRemoteUrl "https://my.git.server.com/myrepo.git" --y.account_id 00000000 --y.downloadBUs "true" --y.gitPush "true" --y.developmentBu "Name_of_my_DEV_BU"

CLI Argument	Description
--y.credentialName	Credential name of your Business Unit
--y.client_id	Salesforce Marketing Cloud client ID
--y.client_secret	Salesforce Marketing Cloud client secret
--y.auth_url	Marketing cloud auth url
--y.gitRemoteUrl	URL of your git remote repo
--y.account_id	MID of the parent BU
--y.downloadBUs	Download all the BUs: true or false
--y.gitPush	Do the first git push: true or false
--y.developmentBu	set the name of your development BU

join

Command: mcdev join

Alias: -

This command clones an existing Accenture SFMC DevTools project from a Git repository and sets up your local environment. It then creates the basic credentials file .mcdev-auth.json in your project directory and it installs recommended npm dependencies. One could use mcdev init instead, but this command nicely combines all necessary steps and ensures there are no issues during the git-clone process.

Example:

mcdev join

upgrade

Command: mcdev upgrade

Alias: mcdev up

This upgrades older Accenture SFMC DevTools projects to the newest standard: Outdated Accenture SFMC DevTools configuration files are upgraded and the right npm dependencies are installed. It also copies the right IDE configuration files into your project folder. See init for more details.

Example:

mcdev upgrade

reloadBUs

Command: mcdev reloadBUs [credential]

Alias: mcdev rb

Use this to synchronize your local list of available Business Units for a given credential. This is useful if you've added, deleted or renamed Business Units on your SFMC instance and want to make sure that your local setup reflects that - or if you accidentally changed your config file and want to restore it.

Example:

mcdev reloadBUs MyProject

badKeys

Command: mcdev badKeys [business unit]

Alias: -

Lists all metadata for which the External key is not in sync with the name to enable you to update them quickly.

Example:

mcdev badKeys MyProject/DEV

document

Command: mcdev document <business unit> <TYPE>

Alias: mcdev doc

Creates human-readable documentation for your metadata. This command is executed by default for supported types unless you changed your config manually (metaDataTypes.documentOnRetrieve). Therefore, running it manually is typically not required. You can choose to generate HTML (html) or Markdown (md) docs via options.documentType.

The default format is set to md as Markdown renders nicely in Git as well as in VSCode's Markdown preview and can be copied from there into Confluence and other applications without losing the formatting.

As standard roles are often not used by projects, we have the optional setting options.documentStandardRoles which is by default set to false

Currently supported types:

Name	CLI Argument
Automation	automation
Data Extension	dataExtension
Role	role
User	accountUser

Example:

mcdev document myServer role

selectTypes

Command: mcdev selectTypes

Alias: mcdev st

Allows you to interactively select which metadata is retrieved when you run the retrieve command. Try out explainTypes first to understand what each type means.

Example:

mcdev selectTypes

Note: You may select non-standard types if you run mcdev selectTypes --debug. This may be needed in edge cases but is not recommended in most situations.

explainTypes

Command: mcdev explainTypes [--json]

Alias: mcdev et

A helper command for selectTypes. It prints out a table that defines what the various types are.

Types marked as not-default should be ignored. These are either under development or merely meant to support contributing to Accenture SFMC DevTools.

Example:

mcdev explainTypes

You can also add the parameter --json to instead get a more detailed output in json format.

mcdev explainTypes --json

which leads to the following (abbreviated here):

[
    {
        "name": "Triggered Send",
        "apiName": "triggeredSend",
        "retrieveByDefault": true,
        "supports": {
            "retrieve": true,
            "create": true,
            "update": true,
            "delete": true,
            "changeKey": true,
            "buildTemplate": true,
            "retrieveAsTemplate": false
        },
        "description": "DEPRECATED: Sends emails via API or DataExtension Event.",
    },
    {
        "name": "User",
        "apiName": "user",
        "retrieveByDefault": false,
        "supports": {
            "retrieve": true,
            "create": true,
            "update": true,
            "delete": false,
            "changeKey": true,
            "buildTemplate": true,
            "retrieveAsTemplate": false
        },
        "description": "Marketing Cloud users",
    }
]

resolveId

Command: mcdev resolveId [business unit] [metadata type] [metadata key]

Alias: mcdev rid

Tries to find the requested asset id and return the key and name as well as info on where it was shared from, if that is the case. This is particularly helpful if you have to deal with code that uses ContentBlockById a lot.

Example:

mcdev rid MyProject/DEV asset 4961

mcdev:: resolveId
 - Searching asset with id 4961 on BU MyProject/DEV
 - ID: 4961
 - Key: 20af5fbf-b4ac-4471-a7e6-2e3d5685c197
 - Name: footer_b2c_transactional
 - How to use:
   %%= ContentBlockByKey("20af5fbf-b4ac-4471-a7e6-2e3d5685c197") =%%
   %%= ContentBlockByName("Content Builder\Release 2 - BUILD\Content Blocks Library\05. Footer and Attachments\Referred content blocks\footer_b2c_transactional") =%%    
 - local link: ./retrieve/MyProject/DEV/asset/block/20af5fbf-b4ac-4471-a7e6-2e3d5685c197.asset-block-meta.html

describeSoap

Command: mcdev describeSoap [soap object]

Alias: mcdev describe, mcdev soap

This is mainly aimed at contributors to get a quick overview on available fields for the various SOAP Web Service API Objects. While there is a (not always correct) overview on possible SOAP operations per object, there is no good page that shows which fields can be retrieved or deployed.

Example:

mcdev soap DataFolder

Response:

Name                        DataType       IsUpdatable  IsRetrievable  MaxLength  IsRequired
--------------------------  -------------  -----------  -------------  ---------  ----------
ID                          Int32          true         true                      true
Client.ID                   Int32          true         true                      true
ParentFolder.ID             Int32          true         true                      false
ParentFolder.CustomerKey    String         true         true           36         false
ParentFolder.ObjectID       Guid           true         true                      false
ParentFolder.Name           String         true         true           100        false
ParentFolder.Description    String         true         true           200        false
ParentFolder.ContentType    String         true         true           50         false
ParentFolder.IsActive       Boolean        false        true                      false
ParentFolder.IsEditable     Boolean        false        true                      false
ParentFolder.AllowChildren  Boolean        false        true                      false
Name                        String         true         true           100        true
Description                 String         true         true           200        true
ContentType                 String         true         true           50         true
IsActive                    Boolean        true         true                      false
IsEditable                  Boolean        true         true                      false
AllowChildren               Boolean        true         true                      false
CreatedDate                 DateTime       true         true                      true
ModifiedDate                DateTime       true         true                      true
Client.ModifiedBy           Int32          true         true                      true
ObjectID                    String         true         true                      false
CustomerKey                 String         true         true           36         false
Client.EnterpriseID         Int64          true         true                      false
Client.CreatedBy            Int32          true         true                      false
ParentFolder                DataFolder     true         false
Client                      ClientID       true         false
PartnerKey                  String         true         false
PartnerProperties           APIProperty[]  true         false
Owner                       Owner          true         false
CorrelationID               String         true         false
ObjectState                 String         true         false
IsPlatformObject            Boolean        true         false