NorthStack Client – A CLI To Help You With Serverless Development

A new way of developing applications was introduced in 2014 with the announcement of Amazon Web Service (AWS) Lambda. This new way primarily focused upon building the applications with a serverless architecture in mind. These applications are then also hosted on special vendors who provide serverless hosting.

One of the prominent names in these serverless hosting vendors is NorthStack. NorthStack is a child company of a premium Managed WordPress hosting company called Pagely. The entire architecture of NorthStack was developed to make hosting your serverless application experience a breeze. 

Previously we have written an extensive review on NorthStack, about the features it provides. If you are interested in reading it then you click here. 🙌

Today, we are going to discuss NorthStack Client – a CLI to run NorthStack APIs. We will also take a look at how you can install it and then use it. So without any further ado, let’s get started.

🚀 NorthStack

NorthStack was founded by Joshua Strebel back in 2018 when the concept of Serverless hosting was still new. Northstack is a managed application hosting that is based on AWS stack. It uses a containerized environment that integrates serverless functions, serverless components, and lastly AWS Aurora database. 

Since NorthStack is one of the first serverless hostings out there, it still provides many different features to its customers. These features include a free SSL/Let’s Encrypt certificate to make your application secure, the latest versions of both PHP and Node, WP CLI to improve your WordPress development workflow, etc.

NorthStack pay as you go is one of its top-selling points. With this, you do not pay extra in order to make your site up in case of high traffic surges. NorthStack monitors your resources and only bill you for the amount your serverless application has consumed. 

💥 NorthStack Client

This is another new feature of NorthStack that you can use when working with serverless applications with it. It is a command-line interface (CLI) that allows you to work with the NorthStack API. It’s called NorthStack Client. Once everything is set, you can easily create any number of serverless applications and deploy them on the NorthStack. 

👨🏻‍💻 Installing The CLI

Let’s discuss this in steps to get a clear view of how you can easily install NorthStack Client.

→ Step #1

The first thing you need to do is to clone the NorthStack Client GitHub repository. For that, you need to open up your terminal and copy-paste the following command there. I am using HyperTerminal with the Shades Of Purple theme. If you like it then you can check it out here.

git clone https://github.com/northstack/northstack-client.git

→ Step #2

Now you need to change your current working directory to northstack-client in the terminal. For this, you type the following command in the terminal.“`

cd northstack-client

→ Step #3

Following the above steps will create a local NorthStack client on your computer. Now let’s install the CLI. For this, you need to run the following command in the terminal.

./bin/install.sh

→ Step #4

Now you need to check whether NorthStack is successfully installed on your computer or not. You can easily do that. Run the following command in the terminal.

northstack

🍭 Working With The CLI

If you have properly followed the steps I shared with you above then by now you have installed the CLI. Now let’s discuss how you can work with it.

🎩 Sign Up

You need to have a NorthStack account to use the CLI. You can easily sign up on the site with the CLI. For this, type the following command in your terminal.

northstack signup

Once you have run the above command, the CLI will ask you a series of questions like your organization name, username, password, etc. You need to answer all of them. 

Once you have gone through this entire process, you would have signed up on the NorthStack. 

🔑 Login

Once you have signed up, now you need to log into the CLI to interact with NorthStack. For that run the following command on the terminal. 

northstack auth:login

After running the command, you would need to give your username and password. 

📦 Create A Serverless Application

Now it is finally the time to create a serverless application with NorthStack Client. The steps are quite easy. What you need to do is write the northstack app:create with your application name and then the primary domain name which your application will use.

northstack app:create “PagelyExample” “pagelyexample.com”

This will create a serverless app for you. You will also get backend credentials of your application that you can use to see the WordPress dashboard.

🚀 Deploy Your Serverless Application

Once you have created your application and have added additional features, etc, you would then need it on NorthStack. Since NorthStack Client is a way for you to improve your serverless workflow with NorthStack serverless hosting, you also get the option to deploy your serverless applications.

When you create a serverless application with NorthStack Client, it also provides you three different environments, i.e., Test, Development, and Production. You can deploy any of these environments to your hosting.

To do this, enter the following in your terminal and your application will be deployed to the server in the development environment.

northstack app:deploy PagelyExample dev

🙌 Wrapping Up

NorthStack is a serverless hosting that provides so many amazing features. It can host WordPress, headless WordPress, static sites, Node.js, and Laravel applications. It uses the FaaS (Function as a Service) model and only bills you according to the resources your application consumes.

Now with NorthStack Client, they have yet again set the bar high. This CLI allows you to easily create a serverless application template from your terminal. You can also deploy it on NorthStack hosting. This can highly improve your workflow while doing serverless development. So if you are looking for a tool like this then your search is over!

Have you used the NorthStack Client or any similar tool? Which tool did you use and how was your experience? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. 

Peace! 🤞