Honeycomb CLI

Auth

Three key types, stored in the OS keyring per profile:

Type	Used For
`config`	Management API (boards, SLOs, triggers, columns, queries)
`ingest`	Sending events (`X-Honeycomb-Team` header)
`management`	Same as config, kept separate for granular access

bash

honeycomb auth login          # interactive key setup
honeycomb auth status         # verify stored key
honeycomb auth status --offline  # check keyring without API call

Query

Requires a config key with query permissions.

bash

# from a file
honeycomb query run --dataset my-dataset --file query.json

# from stdin
echo '{"calculations":[{"op":"COUNT"}],"time_range":3600}' | honeycomb query run --dataset my-dataset --file -

# list/view saved queries
honeycomb query list --dataset my-dataset
honeycomb query view <id> --dataset my-dataset

Raw API Requests

honeycomb api makes authenticated requests to any Honeycomb API endpoint. Useful for endpoints without dedicated subcommands (events, query results, service maps).

bash

honeycomb api /1/events/my-dataset -X POST --input events.json --key-type ingest
honeycomb api /1/query_results/my-dataset/abc123  # poll query results
honeycomb api /1/maps/dependencies/requests -q '.results'
honeycomb api /2/teams -q '.[].name' --paginate   # v2 with jq + pagination

Flags: -X method, -f string fields, -F typed fields, -H headers, -q jq filter, --paginate, --input body file, --key-type override, --raw skip JSON:API unwrapping (v2 paths).

Global Flags

Flag	Purpose
`--format json\|table`	Output format (default: `table` in TTY, `json` in CI/agent)
`--profile`	Configuration profile
`--no-interactive`	Disable prompts
`--api-url`	Override Honeycomb API URL

Patterns

•CRUD convention: most resources support list, get, create, update, delete subcommands
•Scoping: use --dataset for dataset-scoped resources (columns, markers, queries), --environment where applicable
•Agent auto-detection: when CLAUDE_CODE is set, the CLI forces --no-interactive and defaults to --format json
•Commands: auth, query, dataset, board, column, marker, slo, trigger, environment, key, recipient, mcp, api

MCP Server vs CLI `mcp` Subcommand

This plugin configures the Honeycomb MCP server (.mcp.json) for direct tool access via OAuth. Use its tools (run_query, get_dataset_columns, find_columns) when you need query results in context.

The CLI's mcp subcommand is a separate MCP client that authenticates with a config key (Bearer token). Use it when you need to write MCP results to disk:

bash

honeycomb mcp call run_query -f dataset=prod -q '.content[].text' > results.json
honeycomb mcp tools  # list available MCP tools

Honeycomb CLI

Auth

Query

Raw API Requests

Global Flags

Patterns

MCP Server vs CLI mcp Subcommand

MCP Server vs CLI `mcp` Subcommand