The Databricks CLI is a utility that lets you automate the Azure Databricks platform from your terminal or command prompt.

You can execute commands directly from the command line without the need for a graphical user interface.

It lets you do a range of things from creating clusters, deleting workspace objects, getting job run information and much more.

So why is this useful?

One of the main advantages and use cases being automation and reproducibility.

The Databricks CLI enables the automation of tasks such as programmatically creating and configuring databricks clusters and ensuring the reproducibility of your work environment.

So, for example, by using CLI commands in scripts or workflows, you can automate the setup of consistent and reproducible databricks objects such as clusters, streamlining your workflow and reducing the potential for inconsistencies or manual errors.

You’ll also see later on in this course that the CLI seamlessly integrates with CI CD pipelines.

CI CD stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment. It’s a software development practice that involves automatically integrating code changes into a shared repository and continuously deploying those changes to production environments.

So in short, the databricks CLI lets you interact with your databricks resources using a terminal or command prompt.