Stateful CRM CLI for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement — on-premises v9.x (NTLM) or Dataverse online (OAuth). Wraps the real Dataverse Web API (OData v4) over HTTPS; the same commands run against both targets.

Why

Customizations as code — your org's schema and UI live in a git repo as a declarative spec; every change ships as a reviewed plan artifact, and apply --from-plan runs exactly what was approved. On-prem and online, same loop. See the guide: docs/guides/customizations-as-code.md

D365 CE on-prem ships with a GUI and a SOAP/.NET SDK. There's no first-party CLI optimized for AI agents or shell scripting. This harness gives you:

• crm in your PATH
• One-shot subcommands for record CRUD, OData and FetchXML queries, metadata introspection, solution lifecycle, and plug-in assembly + step registration
• A stateful REPL for ad-hoc admin work
• --json everywhere for agent consumption
• --fields KEY[,KEY...] to project any response down to a few columns client-side, so a fat list verb (e.g. --fields uniquename,version solution list) fits an agent's context budget — post-curation, envelope-preserving, works in human mode too (selects table columns)
• --jq PROGRAM to run a jq program over any response client-side, so --jq length solution list returns a single count and group_by/map expressions produce census-style summaries instead of the full payload — same emit seam as --fields (mutually exclusive with it), implies --json, envelope-preserving
• --dry-run to preview writes without issuing them (reads still run for real); on writes that name another object — a lookup's target entity, a picklist's option set, a plug-in step's message/type/entity — the preview also reports whether each reference exists (data.references[], dangling ones flagged in meta.warnings)
• These five flags — --json, --fields, --jq, --profile, --dry-run — are dual-position: valid before or after the subcommand, so crm entity get accounts --json is byte-identical to crm --json entity get accounts (position is pure syntax). Supplying one in both positions is a usage error. The other global flags stay root-only (before the command)
• An append-only JSONL audit journal (~/.crm/audit/<session>.jsonl) of every mutating command; crm session audit to review it
• --cache-metadata for a persistent per-profile entity-definition cache (speeds up repeated one-shot agent calls; env: CRM_CACHE_METADATA=1)
• crm ribbon to read and edit entity command-bar buttons (export / list / add-button / set-label / set-icon / remove / hide-button / set-rules / add-custom-rule / apply) without manual solution-XML editing; add-button and set-icon can set a button's icon (--modern-image SVG for the Unified Interface, --image16/--image32 classic rasters); ribbon export --application exports the application-wide ribbon; a working-copy flow (ribbon export --solution → --diff-file edits → ribbon apply) composes several ribbon edits offline into a single publish
• crm solution layer-conflicts to detect components shared by a managed and an unmanaged solution (unmanaged-layer conflicts) — works on-prem too, where XrmToolBox's layer explorer can't

Documentation

Full docs (install, configure, per-group how-tos, generated CLI reference) live at crm-cli-docs.pages.dev.

Two surfaces feed AI agents:

• crm/skills/ — the agent skill loaded by skill-aware harnesses (Claude Code, Copilot CLI, …) after crm skill install: a thin SKILL.md router plus reference/*.md files loaded on demand.
• llms.txt / llms-full.txt — published at the docs-site root for any web-fetch agent: /llms.txt is a curated index, /llms-full.txt is every page in one fetch.

Requirements

Requirement	Version	Notes
Python	≥ 3.13
Dynamics 365 CE on-prem	9.0 / 9.1 / 9.2	Reachable from your machine over HTTPS
Auth	NTLM (on-prem) · OAuth (online)	NTLM = Windows Integrated; OAuth = client-credentials for Dataverse cloud.

The D365 server is a hard runtime dependency — without it the CLI has nothing to talk to. E2E tests fail loudly if credentials are missing.

Install

Option 1: Install script (no Python required)

The prebuilt crm binary bundles CPython and all dependencies. Install it with a one-liner — no GitHub account or Python needed.

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://pub-bbeb86c46454443ca76521dd4d29818e.r2.dev/install.ps1 | iex

Installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\crm and adds it to your user PATH. Open a new shell, then run crm --version. The binary is unsigned, so Windows SmartScreen may warn on first run. On managed machines this binary may be blocked outright by endpoint security (e.g. Microsoft Defender ASR or AppLocker) — use Option 2: uv tool install below in that case. To uninstall, download install.ps1 and run .\install.ps1 -Uninstall.

Linux:

curl -fsSL https://pub-bbeb86c46454443ca76521dd4d29818e.r2.dev/install.sh | sh

Installs to ~/.local/share/crm and links ~/.local/bin/crm. Ensure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH. Built on Ubuntu 22.04, so it runs on any Linux with glibc ≥ 2.35. To uninstall, download install.sh and run sh install.sh --uninstall.

Pin a version by setting CRM_VERSION (e.g. v0.6.0) before running.

Both scripts verify the archive's SHA-256 against the published SHA256SUMS before extracting and abort on a mismatch or if it can't be fetched. To pin a hash from a trusted channel (or to install a release published before checksums existed), set CRM_SHA256 ($env:CRM_SHA256 on Windows). See the install guide.

Option 2: uv tool install (isolated, recommended for managed machines)

Installs crm into an isolated environment that runs through your trusted python interpreter instead of a standalone binary. Use this when Option 1's prebuilt binary is blocked by endpoint security (Microsoft Defender ASR, AppLocker, etc.) — there is no new unsigned executable for those policies to flag.

First install uv if you don't already have it:

Windows (PowerShell):

winget install --id=astral-sh.uv -e

Linux / macOS:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Then install crm from the repository (it is not published to PyPI, so install from the Git source or a wheel):

uv tool install git+https://github.com/Gharib89/crm
crm --version

uv tool install places a small launcher on your PATH; run uv tool update-shell once if crm isn't found in a new shell. If even that launcher is blocked, run the CLI as a module instead — no executable is created at all:

uv run --from git+https://github.com/Gharib89/crm crm --version

Option 3: From source (development)

# From source (local dev)
pip install -e .

# Verify the command is on PATH
which crm
crm --version

Keeping crm up to date

On an interactive terminal, crm checks at most once a day whether a newer release exists and prints a one-line notice (at most once a day) after a command finishes. The check runs in the background against the release server, never blocks the command, and is silent under --json, when stderr is not a terminal, when CI is set, or when CRM_NO_UPDATE_CHECK is set.

For binaries installed via the install script (Option 1), upgrade in place:

crm self-update           # download, checksum-verify, and swap the binary
crm self-update --check   # report current vs latest version, change nothing

pip/uv/source installs aren't modified by self-update — it points you at pip install -U crm (or re-running uv tool install) instead. Either way, self-update also re-syncs any agent skills you installed with crm skill install, and any shell completion you installed with crm completion install (below), so both stay current with the CLI.

Shell completion

Enable tab-completion for crm in bash, zsh, fish, or PowerShell:

crm completion install            # caches the script under ~/.crm and prints one rc line
crm completion show --shell zsh   # or just print the script to stdout

install writes the completion script under ${CRM_HOME:-~/.crm}/completion/ and prints the single line to add to your shell startup file — source <path> for bash/zsh/fish, . <path> for PowerShell — and never edits the file for you. --shell defaults to autodetecting $SHELL; PowerShell sets no $SHELL, so pass --shell powershell explicitly. Once installed, --profile and positional entity-set arguments (crm entity get <TAB>) complete dynamically from local state and the on-disk metadata cache — never a network call. See the completion how-to for per-shell setup.

Configure

Credentials live in a saved profile — there is no .env file and no credential environment variables. Create one with crm profile add:

crm profile add

On a terminal this runs an interactive wizard (URL → inferred auth scheme → identity → secret), then runs a WhoAmI against the server before saving anything. On success it saves the profile, stores the secret, and activates it — no extra prompts. If that live test fails, a structurally malformed profile (bad URL, missing tenant/client id, no secret) is rejected outright with nothing saved; a plausible one (likely a transient outage — VPN down, app user not yet provisioned) prompts "Save the profile anyway?" on a TTY, or errors without saving non-interactively unless you pass --save-on-test-failure. The first connection command run with no profile configured launches this wizard automatically; under --json / no TTY it errors cleanly and tells you to run crm profile add.

For scripting, pass flags instead. The auth scheme is inferred from the URL (*.dynamics.* → OAuth, anything else → NTLM); override with --auth-scheme.

On-prem (NTLM):

crm profile add \
    --url https://crm.contoso.local/contoso \
    --username alice --domain CONTOSO \
    --password "$SECRET" \
    --name prod

--domain is optional when the username is a UPN. Omit --api-version to auto-negotiate — on-prem caps at v9.1 (v9.2 → HTTP 501); online uses v9.2.

Online / Dataverse cloud (OAuth 2.0 client-credentials):

crm profile add \
    --url https://contoso.crm.dynamics.com \
    --tenant-id <aad-tenant-id> --client-id <app-registration-id> \
    --password "$CLIENT_SECRET" \
    --name online

The app registration needs an application user in Dynamics with a suitable security role. The token scope (https://<host>/.default) and authority (https://login.microsoftonline.com/<tenant>) are derived automatically; the bearer token is cached at ~/.crm/msal_token_cache.json (mode 0600) and reused across invocations until it expires. Username/password/domain are not used in this mode.

Attach a schema-name prefix so scaffolding and column-name derivation don't need a per-command flag:

crm profile add --url ... --publisher-prefix cwx --name crmworx

Mark a profile read-only to block accidental writes — the backend refuses every org mutation (non-GET, minus solution/translation export actions) with a loud operational failure (exit 1), while reads run normally:

crm profile add --url ... --name prod-ro --read-only   # or: crm profile edit prod-ro --read-only

Setting it is unrestricted (tighten from anywhere, including CI); clearing it (crm profile edit prod-ro --no-read-only) needs an interactive terminal to confirm, so an agent with no TTY can't flip it off. It's a guardrail, not a security boundary — the same OS user can hand-edit the profile file; real enforcement is a server-side read-only security role. See ADR 0021.

BREAKING (#636): every customization-write command (metadata create-* / update-*, plugin create/register-*/update-step-*, webresource, form, view, chart, dashboard, sitemap, app, sla, report, connectionrole, dup, fieldsec, security create-role, scaffold, ribbon, workflow clone) now requires an explicit --solution <unique_name> — there is no profile default and no opt-out (pass --solution Default for a deliberate Default-Solution-only write). Hard metadata delete-* verbs are exempt: a hard delete removes the component globally, so the header can't orphan it — --solution stays optional there. Removed: profile default_solution (and --default-solution on profile add/edit), --require-solution, CRM_REQUIRE_SOLUTION, solution create --set-default, and the apply --solution override flag — crm apply now requires a top-level solution: block in the spec itself (metadata export-spec --solution <name> bakes it in). See ADR 0020.

State lives under ~/.crm/ — CRM_HOME is the only env var involved in credential/connection resolution (it relocates that directory). No credentials are ever read from the environment. (Other CRM_* vars tune unrelated runtime behavior — logging, retries, stage-only — but never supply connection config.)

Storing credentials

crm profile add stores the secret automatically:

• By default it goes into your OS keyring (macOS Keychain / Windows Credential Manager / Linux SecretService). Keyring support is built in — no extra install.
• On hosts with no keyring backend (typical WSL / headless CI) it falls back automatically to a 0600 plaintext entry inside the profile file. Force plaintext anywhere with --store-password-plaintext (0600 on POSIX; perms unenforced on Windows).
• crm profile set-password --profile NAME stores or replaces the secret for an existing profile (NTLM password or OAuth client secret alike); never contacts the server. crm profile delete-password --profile NAME removes it.
• crm profile list shows each profile's storage type (keyring / plaintext / none).

Secret resolution order: --password (per-run override) > stored secret (plaintext entry, then keyring) > interactive prompt (TTY only). No environment variable is consulted.

Use

Default REPL

$ crm
◆ d365 [prod] ❯ connection whoami
◆ d365 [prod] ❯ query odata contacts --top 5 --select fullname,emailaddress1
◆ d365 [prod] ❯ help
◆ d365 [prod] ❯ quit

Bare crm only opens the REPL on an interactive terminal. A non-interactive caller — --json, CRM_NO_REPL=1, or a piped/redirected stdin (agents, CI) — exits 2 with a usage message pointing at crm --help instead of hanging on a prompt. Explicit crm repl always launches.

Inside the REPL, commands are typed without the crm prefix (connection whoami, not crm connection whoami), but a single leading crm is tolerated and ignored so a copy-paste from the docs still works.

After a few commands (profile add, profile use, solution export, query odata) the CLI prints a dim next-step hint suggesting a natural follow-up. Each hint shows only once (per CRM_HOME) and only in human/REPL output on a terminal — never under --json, in a pipe, or for agents. Set CRM_NO_HINTS to any value to turn them off entirely.

One-shot subcommands

# Preflight diagnostic — pinpoints which layer is broken (DNS/TLS/version/auth)
crm connection doctor          # or: crm doctor
crm --json connection doctor   # JSON: {ok, data:{checks:[{check,ok,detail,hint}]}}

# Identity check
crm --json connection whoami

# Read
crm query odata contacts \
    --filter "statecode eq 0" --select fullname,telephone1 --top 10

# Write (preview first)
crm --dry-run entity create contacts \
    --data '{"firstname":"Rafel","lastname":"Shillo"}'

# Then actually create
crm --json entity create contacts \
    --data '{"firstname":"Rafel","lastname":"Shillo"}'

# Catch typo'd field names before the write (1-3 metadata GETs; composes with --dry-run)
crm --json entity create contacts --validate \
    --data '{"firstnaem":"Rafel"}'   # -> ok:false, did_you_mean {firstnaem: firstname}

# Verify after write/publish — repeatable --expect ATTR=VALUE asserts a field on the
# returned record (AND-gated, stringified); first mismatch exits 1 with meta{attr,expected,actual}.
crm --json entity get contacts <guid> --expect statecode=1           # assert a write landed
crm --json metadata attribute account industrycode --expect AttributeType=Picklist  # assert a publish landed

# FetchXML
crm query fetchxml accounts --file ./reports/by_industry.xml

# Solution export — name it explicitly, or omit the name on a TTY to pick interactively
crm solution export MyCustomSolution -o /tmp/snap.zip

# Org-to-org drift recipe: project a whole solution into one apply-consumable spec on dev,
# then preview schema drift on prod without writing anything.
crm solution export-spec MyCustomSolution -o desired.yaml      # dev (source)
crm --dry-run apply -f desired.yaml                            # prod (preview drift)

# Solution source control: unpack a zip to a diff-able tree and pack it back
# (offline — no connection needed; needs the Power Platform CLI `pac` on PATH)
crm solution extract --zipfile /tmp/snap.zip --folder ./src/MyCustomSolution
crm solution pack    --zipfile /tmp/built.zip --folder ./src/MyCustomSolution

# Validate a solution zip before import (offline by default; --against-org adds
# GUID-collision, existence, and package-version-ceiling checks against the connected
# org). Exits non-zero on any error.
crm solution validate /tmp/snap.zip

# Bulk export
crm data export opportunities -o /tmp/op.csv \
    --filter "statecode eq 0" --select name,estimatedvalue

# Bulk import (JSONL create; use --mode upsert --id-column <col> for PATCH by GUID,
# or --mode upsert --key <attr> to PATCH by alternate key when no GUID is available;
# --mode delete removes records by the same GUID/alternate-key resolution).
# READ-shape lookups (_<attr>_value, as export emits) auto-rebind to
# <nav>@odata.bind from metadata, so an export round-trips with no hand-editing.
crm data import accounts records.jsonl
crm data import accounts updates.jsonl --mode upsert --key accountnumber
crm data import accounts to_delete.jsonl --mode delete --key accountnumber --yes
crm --dry-run data import accounts records.jsonl   # preview: zero writes, dry_run:true

# Server-side BulkDelete job — deletes all records matching a FetchXML query
# (FetchXML is converted server-side to QueryExpression; raw OData $filter is not accepted)
crm --json data delete contacts \
    --fetchxml '<fetch><entity name="contact"><filter><condition attribute="statecode" operator="eq" value="1"/></filter></entity></fetch>' \
    --wait --yes
crm --dry-run data delete contacts --fetchxml-file ./stale-contacts.xml  # preview matched count

# Discover the CLI surface (no connection needed) — for agents and scripts
crm --json describe

# Browse a curated gallery of runnable examples (no connection needed)
crm examples              # TTY: pick a group, then an example — prints it to copy/edit
crm examples solution     # jump straight to one group
crm --json examples       # plain listing for scripts/agents

Output modes

Every command supports --json:

{
  "ok": true,
  "data": {...},
  "meta": {"count": 12, "entity_set": "contacts"}
}

data is a curated, CLI-owned shape, not a passthrough of the raw Web API response (ADR 0008): list verbs put a bare array in data (data[0] is the first row) with paging relocated to meta.next_link/meta.count; @odata.* protocol keys are stripped everywhere; and the written record's GUID is surfaced under the single normalized key _entity_id (with _entity_id_url) on create/update/delete/clone/entity get — so one extraction rule works across commands.

query odata follows @odata.nextLink automatically when you opt in: --all merges every page into one data array (no meta.next_link in the result); --max-records N follows pages only until N rows are collected and caps the array there. When --max-records truncated the result (more rows existed), meta.truncated: true appears in the envelope. Default (neither flag) is unchanged: one server page, meta.next_link present when more pages exist — that default single page also sets meta.has_more: true and adds a meta.warnings advisory to page via meta.next_link (or --all/--max-records on query odata); a --count that lands exactly on the server's 5000-row cap alongside a cursor gets a second warning that the count is a clamped lower bound. These cursor-driven signals also appear on query saved/query user; query fetchxml pages via a FetchXML cookie (no cursor), so it never surfaces them, and --all/--max-records/--count are query odata-only. A read that fits in one page gets neither signal.

CLI-handled --json failures come back as valid envelopes with ok:false and error. Backend / Web API failures add meta: {"status": 404, "code": "...", "category": "not_found", "retryable": false}. Usage errors may omit meta; non-usage Click-layer failures include an empty meta object. Parse error first and treat meta as optional. meta.category is a closed enum (not_found, auth_failed, forbidden, concurrency_conflict, duplicate_detected, validation, throttled, server_error, transport_error) and meta.retryable flags the transient classes. The backend auto-retries the transient transport / 429 / 5xx classes for idempotent verbs (concurrency_conflict (412) is flagged retryable too but is never auto-retried — refetch a fresh ETag and retry), but a non-idempotent POST (record create, action, associate) is not retried by default — a lost response may mean the write already landed. Pass --retry-on-ambiguous (env: CRM_RETRY_ON_AMBIGUOUS) to opt back into retrying POSTs when re-sending is acceptable. $batch keeps its own retry loop regardless. The one POST exception is the CustomizationLockException family (the org-wide customization lock held by a concurrent publish/customization) — because the lock fails the call before the operation starts, re-sending is always safe, so it is auto-retried on any verb regardless of --retry-on-ambiguous.

meta.profile and meta.url appear on every success envelope from a command that opened a connection — the resolved profile name and Web API base URL, so a result is self-identifying without GUID-matching. They are absent on error envelopes and on local verbs that never connect (connection status, session, profile list, etc.).

meta.warnings is an array of non-fatal advisories — the one place to scan for staged-but-unpublished changes, created-but-read-back-failed records, and partial-optionset failures (which also surface meta.completed_steps / meta.failed_stage on the error envelope).

Command Groups

Group	Purpose
connection	Profiles, WhoAmI, preflight diagnostic (doctor), reachability checks
org	Org-level orientation: org brief is a one-call, read-only inventory (counts + key names, never full rows) — identity, solutions + candidate --solution targets, publishers + prefixes, custom entities, apps, and automation/component counts — so an agent can orient without sweeping the fat list verbs
connectionrole	Connection roles: create a role, scope it to an entity type, match two roles as reciprocal partners
entity	Record CRUD (get/create/update/upsert/delete); create/update/upsert accept read-shape lookup payloads from get/export/query and rebind them to @odata.bind; upsert accepts --key ATTR[,ATTR...] to match by alternate key instead of a primary GUID (key values read from --data, key attrs stripped from the body), plus --if-none-match for a create-only upsert (412 if the record exists); clone (single-record clone, lookups rebound to the same parents, --override/--unset; --with-children also clones the custom 1:N child rows, repointing them to the new parent — continue-and-report on failure, --skip-child-entity prunes); children (per-1:N related-record counts via chunked $batch, not one query per relationship)
query	OData v4 and FetchXML queries; query odata --apply runs server-side $apply aggregation / group-by / distinct
metadata	Entity / attribute / relationship CRUD; global option set CRUD
apply	Declarative desired-state from a YAML/JSON spec (apply -f spec.yaml); declares publishers, solutions, entities (with columns, views, and forms — tabs / sections / field placement / JS libraries + handlers, converged onto the entity's main form), option sets, web resources, security roles, plug-in assemblies / types / steps / images, and model-driven apps (top-level apps: — components + sitemap as areas / groups / subareas); --prune opts in to solution-bounded deletion of org components the spec no longer declares (gated; preview with --dry-run)
scaffold	Quick one-table shorthand: scaffold table DISPLAY --column ... creates an entity + N columns in one publish
solution	List / info / components (--save/--diff for drift detection) / dependencies (uninstall-blocker preview) / missing-components (pre-import dependency check against the target org) / add-component / remove-component / set-version / export / import / import-result / extract / pack / validate solutions; export-spec <unique_name> [-o FILE] projects a whole solution (entities and their seedable main forms, security roles, web resources, and model-driven apps — identity + Entity-backed sitemap) into one apply-consumable desired-state spec (org-to-org drift recipe source); managed-upgrade lifecycle: clone-as-patch / stage-and-upgrade (holding import, --promote) / apply-upgrade (separate promote) / uninstall
data	Bulk CSV/JSON dataset export + JSONL/CSV import via $batch; --mode upsert/--mode delete resolve records by GUID (--id-column) or alternate key (--key); data delete submits a server-side BulkDelete async job for records matching a FetchXML query
webresource	Create/update/get/list/delete web resources (HTML/JS/CSS/images); stages by default, --publish to publish immediately; push <DIR> --prefix <p> bulk-upserts a directory tree (name = <prefix>_<relpath>, type inferred from extension, skips byte-identical, --publish publishes once at the end); set as app icons
view	System views (savedquery): list / create; edit-columns to add, remove, resize, or reorder grid columns in place (keeps layoutxml + fetchxml coupled); set-order to replace, append, or clear the sort order; add-filter / remove-filter to edit FetchXML filter conditions in place — all without manual XML editing
form	Entity main forms (systemform): list, clone to another table, export formxml; add-field / remove-field / set-field / set-field-props to edit form layouts; add / remove / rename / move tab & section to edit the form's tab/section structure; add-library / add-handler / remove-handler / list-handlers to wire and inspect JS event handlers — all without manual FormXml editing
chart	System & user charts (savedqueryvisualization / userqueryvisualization): list / get / create / delete; author from datadescription + presentationdescription XML or a web-resource visualization; edit in-place with update (replace XML columns, name, description, or series chart type), set-fetch (swap the inner <fetch> while keeping categories), add-series / remove-series (add or remove an aggregate series), and set-groupby (change the grouping column) — all headlessly (no chart designer)
sitemap	Live SiteMap navigation editors — edit an existing sitemap in place over a read-modify-write path (GET → mutate → PATCH) without re-authoring the whole document: add-area, add-group, add-subarea (exactly one of --entity / --url / --dashboard, with --entity and --dashboard validated to exist and --pass-params to append context params to a --url), move-node (reorder a node within its parent via --before / --after / --index), remove-node (--comment-out to soft-delete), set-title / set-description (set localized <Titles>/<Descriptions> per LCID on any node). Complements app build-sitemap / app set-sitemap which POST a whole new SiteMapXml. Find a sitemap's GUID with crm query odata sitemaps --select sitemapname,sitemapid
dashboard	Organization-owned system dashboards (systemform type=0): list / get / create / delete; add-chart splices a ChartGrid tile (chart + grid) into an existing dashboard's FormXml; add-view splices a view-only grid tile; add-iframe embeds an IFRAME tile; add-webresource embeds a web-resource tile (validates existence, warns if not form-enabled); remove-component removes exactly one tile selected by --cell-id / --index / --view / --chart / --url. Create from a FormXml file, headlessly (no dashboard designer). Interactive (type-10) dashboards are not API-creatable and are rejected with a clear error
theme	Application themes (product branding): list / get / create / update / publish; set colors via --set FIELD=VALUE and a logo web resource, then publish to make one the active org theme (PublishTheme). Themes are not solution-aware (they don't travel with a solution export)
report	Register and manage custom reports headlessly: list / get / create / delete; create --body-file uploads an SSRS RDL (reporttypecode 1); create --url registers a link report (reporttypecode 3); create --org makes it org-wide (ispersonal=false); set-category files it under sales / service / marketing / administrative. Reports are solution-aware
plugin	Register/update/unregister plug-in assemblies, plug-in types, webhook service endpoints, SDK message processing steps (bind to a plug-in type or a service endpoint), and step entity images
security	Create security roles (create-role); grant / replace a role's privileges (set-role-privileges); list and assign roles to users or teams; show a user's effective privileges (incl. team-inherited); grant / revoke / list record sharing (POA)
fieldsec	Column-level (field) security: create field security profiles, grant --read/--create/--update column permissions, assign profiles to users or teams, list / get
dup	Duplicate-detection rules: create a rule, add match conditions, publish (async) / unpublish, check a candidate record against the published rules (RetrieveDuplicates), and bulk-detect — sweep a table for existing duplicates via a server-side BulkDetectDuplicates async job; list / get
workflow	List, activate/deactivate, delete, trigger, clone, export, import, update (metadata and on-prem whole-XAML replace), and migration-assess (classic-workflow → cloud-flow readiness) D365 workflow definitions
sla	Full SLA lifecycle: create an SLA for a target entity (auto-enabling IsSLAEnabled on that entity), add-kpi to attach KPI / SLA-item conditions (FetchXML --applicable-when / --success-criteria), and activate (activates backing workflows first, then the SLA, with structured per-step compile-error reporting)
translation	Export / import localizable display labels for a solution (ExportTranslation / ImportTranslation)
action	Call arbitrary OData functions and actions
audit	Retrieve server-side D365 audit change history (audit history / audit detail) — distinct from the local session audit journal
session	Local session state, command history, and audit journal
completion	Print or install shell completion (bash/zsh/fish/powershell); install caches the script + prints the rc line to source
self-update	Upgrade a frozen (install-script) binary in place and re-sync installed agent skills + shell completion; --check reports current vs latest

For a continuous redeploy loop during front-end development, pipe entr (or watchexec) into webresource push:

# re-push whenever any JS file changes (find is portable; bash ** globstar is off by default)
find webresources -type f -name '*.js' | entr crm webresource push webresources --prefix cwx

# watchexec equivalent
watchexec -e js,css,html -- crm webresource push webresources --prefix cwx

See how-to/webresource for the full push semantics (naming convention, upsert logic, dry-run).

The metadata group covers both browsing and write verbs. metadata describe <entity> returns a one-shot, read-only write-readiness brief — entity set, primary id/name, writable columns + required levels, lookup @odata.bind keys + targets, and picklist/state/status options — everything needed to build a valid record payload in one call. Write verbs new in 0.5.0:

• metadata add-attribute <entity> --kind <k> — add a column (15 kinds, incl. customer composite lookup); --type rollup or --type calculated layers rollup/calculated on top of a supported column kind (requires --formula-file <xaml> — XAML is editor-authored and sent verbatim)
• metadata update-attribute <entity> <attribute> — edit a column (display/description/required/bounds/format/audit); --behavior performs the platform's one-time datetime behavior change UserLocal → DateOnly/TimeZoneIndependent (both terminal), auto-coupling the format and warning that existing stored values are not backfilled
• metadata create-one-to-many / create-many-to-many — relationships; create-one-to-many accepts --hierarchical to mark the 1:N as a parent/child hierarchy (self-referencing entity required)
• metadata update-relationship <schema> — update cascade/menu on an existing relationship; --hierarchical / --no-hierarchical sets IsHierarchical on a 1:N (rejected for N:N)
• metadata can-relate <entity> --as referenced|referencing|many-to-many — read-only eligibility check before creating a relationship; --valid-partners lists legal partner tables (N:N partner list is org-global, not entity-scoped)
• metadata create-entity accepts --data-provider, --data-source, --external-name, --external-collection-name to create a VIRTUAL (external-data-backed) table; on v9.1 virtual tables are read-only and require the data-provider record to exist first
• --audit / --no-audit on create-entity, add-attribute, update-entity, and update-attribute toggles the IsAuditEnabled managed property on a table/column (requires org-level auditing to be turned on for audit records to be written)
• metadata list-optionsets / get-optionset / create-optionset / update-optionset / delete-optionset — global option sets
• metadata keys <entity> / create-key <entity> --key-attributes col1,col2 / delete-key <entity> <key> — read, create, and drop alternate keys (the natural-key index that entity upsert --key / data import --mode upsert --key match on)
• metadata delete-entity <logical-name> — drop a custom entity (gated)
• metadata delete-attribute <entity> <attribute> / delete-relationship <schema-name> — drop a custom column or relationship (gated)
• metadata dependencies <target> [--kind entity|attribute|optionset|relationship] [--for delete|dependents|required] — pre-delete dependency preview: returns can_delete + blockers[]; --for required lists what the target itself depends on (RetrieveRequiredComponents); pass --check-dependencies on a metadata delete-* verb (delete-entity, delete-attribute, delete-relationship, delete-optionset) to fold this into the preview
• metadata export-spec <logical_name> [--with-views] [--with-relationships] [--with-forms] [-o FILE] — project a live entity into a crm apply -f–consumable desired-state spec (round-trip). Pure GETs; -o writes the bare YAML directly. --with-forms projects the entity's seedable main form (custom-field placement, JS libraries + handlers) as a forms: block. Custom columns that cannot be represented (permission limits, unsupported formats) are reported in meta.warnings instead of silently dropped; a form that cannot round-trip a real apply (an additional main form) is reported in meta.skipped.
• metadata clone-entity <source> <new-schema-name> — duplicate a custom entity (skeleton + opt-in --with-forms / --with-views / --with-workflows / --with-charts, or --with-all) purely over the Web API. The ribbon is not cloned (no API write path); N:N and parent-side relationships are not cloned.
• metadata status-add <entity> --state <stateCode> --label <text> — add a statuscode option tied to a state (InsertStatusValue); --value is optional (server assigns the next value with publisher prefix if omitted)
• metadata state-relabel <entity> --value <stateCode> --label <text> — relabel a statecode state option such as Active/Inactive (UpdateStateValue); --merge-labels preserves labels in other languages
• metadata create-mapping <relationship> --from <attr> --to <attr> — create a field/attribute mapping on a 1:N relationship; --auto bulk-generates the likely mappings via AutoMapEntity (replaces any existing maps for the pair)
• metadata changes [--since <stamp>] [--entity <logical> ...] [--attributes] — retrieve new/changed metadata since a version stamp (RetrieveMetadataChanges); save the returned server_version_stamp and pass it as --since next run to get only the delta. Omit --since for a baseline snapshot. Omit --entity to query every table (expensive on a baseline — scope with --entity when possible)

crm apply -f spec.yaml stands up a whole table (publisher, solution, entity, columns, option sets, relationships, views, forms, web resources, security roles, plug-in assemblies with their types, steps, and images, and model-driven apps with their sitemaps) from one declarative spec, in dependency order, publishing once at the end (when a publishable component changed — security roles and plug-in components are not published). It is convergent: a component that already exists is reconciled against the spec — left untouched when it matches (skipped), updated in place when an allowed field drifts (updated), or refused with no write when the divergence would require a destructive drop-and-recreate (replace_blocked, ok=false, exit 1). The full envelope is {ok, data:{applied, updated, skipped, replace_blocked, pruned, planned, failed}, meta:{staged}}. --dry-run reads the live org and reports the full drift without writing — planned (would create), updated (would update), replace_blocked, and pruned — so you can preview exactly what an apply would converge; in --json mode the envelope's meta also carries dry_run: true. Add -o/--plan-out FILE (dry-run only) to serialize that drift report as a self-contained plan artifact — spec, payload sha256 pins, and per-component verdicts — for review in a PR or ticket. crm apply --from-plan FILE then executes that plan only if it is still exactly true: it re-reconciles against the live org, refuses a stale plan (any diverged component → ok=false, exit 1, no writes), and replays the plan's own intent (--prune / --allow-data-loss / --stage-only) rather than letting you re-specify it — so what was approved is what runs. --dry-run --from-plan re-verifies without executing. See how-to/apply.

crm scaffold table DISPLAY --column 'DISPLAY:KIND[:opts]' ... is the quick one-liner path: builds an entity + N columns in memory and runs them through the same apply engine in one publish. Use it for simple tables; use apply when you need publishers, solutions, option sets, relationships, views, web resources, or security roles. See how-to/scaffold.

Use crm <group> --help for command-level details.

Testing

# Unit tests (mocked HTTP, no server needed)
pip install -e .[dev]
pytest crm/tests/test_core.py -v

# E2E (requires live server credentials)
# The E2E fixture reads these env vars to SEED a temporary profile (the CLI itself
# resolves from the saved profile, not the env).
export D365_URL=... D365_USERNAME=... D365_PASSWORD=... D365_DOMAIN=...
CRM_FORCE_INSTALLED=1 pytest crm/tests/ -v -s

See crm/tests/TEST.md for the full test plan and recorded results.

Architecture

crm (Click + REPL)
    │
    ├─ core/        record CRUD, queries, metadata, solutions, export, session
    └─ utils/
         ├─ d365_backend.py   requests + requests_ntlm → live Web API
         └─ repl_skin.py      shared REPL chrome

See D365.md in the project root for the full SOP.

Limits / Out of Scope

• IFD (claims) auth, certificate credentials, and OAuth flows other than client-credentials (device-code, interactive, ROPC) — on-prem uses NTLM, cloud uses OAuth 2.0 client-credentials (secret) against the public cloud only.
• Plugin / workflow source code deployment — use solution import for that.
• Audit log / report execution — out of scope; can be added as an extension.

License

Copyright 2026 Ahmed Gharib, Principal Advanced Analytics Engineer at ITWorx (ahmed.gharib@itworx.com).

Licensed under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0 — free to use, modify, and share for noncommercial purposes (personal, research, education, charity, government). This applies to the source and the released binaries.

Commercial use by any organization requires a separate written license from the copyright holder. Contact ahmed.gharib@itworx.com to arrange one.