Today we are releasing seamless-cli v0.1.0, a CLI that sets up a complete passwordless authentication stack with a single command.
npx seamless-cli my-app
In a few minutes, you can have a working system that includes a web app, an API, and an auth server. Everything is wired together and ready to run.
Why seamless-cli exists
Setting up authentication is one of the most frustrating parts of building an application. You have to deal with cookies, tokens, cross-origin requests, and multiple services talking to each other. Even small mistakes can take hours to debug.
seamless-cli removes that setup work. Instead of stitching together pieces by hand, you answer a few prompts and get a working system that behaves the way you expect.
What gets created
Depending on your choices, the CLI can generate a structure like this:
/web → React starter app
/api → Express API server
/auth → Seamless Auth server
These services are already connected:
- The web app calls the API
- The API communicates with the auth server
- The auth server manages sessions and tokens
You do not need to configure these connections yourself.
Security built in
The generated project includes the pieces you would normally need to wire by hand:
- API service tokens
- JWT signing configuration
- JWKS keys for token validation
- Cookie-based sessions
The CLI creates these values once and applies them consistently across services so everything works together from the start.
Running your project
You can run the stack in two ways.
Local development
Run each service independently:
cd auth && npm install && npm run dev
cd api && npm install && npm run dev
cd web && npm install && npm run dev
Docker
Run everything together:
docker compose up
The generated docker-compose file includes all required services and configuration. Containers are set up to communicate correctly without extra changes.
Configuration that stays in sync
One of the hardest parts of working with multiple services is keeping configuration aligned. Tokens, keys, and URLs need to match across every layer.
seamless-cli handles this by generating shared values and applying them everywhere they are needed. This avoids subtle bugs that often appear when services fall out of sync.
Interactive setup
The CLI walks you through the setup process instead of relying on flags. You choose:
- whether to create a web app
- whether to create an API
- how to run the auth server
- whether to use Docker
This keeps the process simple while still allowing flexibility.
Design goals
seamless-cli is built around a few ideas:
- Everything runs locally
- Authentication stays inside your system
- Modern passwordless approaches are the default
- The result should be close to production behavior
What comes next
This first release focuses on creating new projects. Future work will include:
- adding Seamless Auth to existing applications
- support for more frameworks
- improved infrastructure options
- additional developer tooling
Getting started
Create a new project:
npx seamless-cli my-app
Or run it in your current directory:
npx seamless-cli
Closing
The goal of seamless-cli is to make authentication setup predictable and fast. If you have spent time debugging auth issues, this should save you that effort.
Try it out and see how it fits into your workflow.