Quickstart

Install the FlareDB CLI, start a local instance, and run a WordCount pipeline end to end.

This guide walks you through installing FlareDB, starting a local instance, and running a WordCount pipeline on FlareDB. By the end, you’ll have a running FlareDB instance with a WordCount pipeline successfully submitted and executed.

1. Install the FlareDB CLI

The flare CLI lets you initialize and manage FlareDB instances, and provides an interactive SQL shell for querying your data.

Linux and macOS

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/flare-db/flare-db/releases/download/flare-cli-v0.1.3/flare-cli-installer.sh | sh

Windows

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/flare-db/flare-db/releases/download/flare-cli-v0.1.3/flare-cli-installer.ps1 | iex"

You can also download the binary for your platform from the GitHub releases page.

2. Initialize FlareDB

flare init

This creates the local ~/.flaredb directory and downloads the components required to run FlareDB. This is a one time setup.

3. Start an instance

flare up

FlareDB starts a local instance on port 8099 and is ready to accept pipeline jobs.

The local instance stores its data under ~/.flaredb, including tables created through the SQL shell and data written by pipelines.

4. Run a pipeline

Clone the repository and run the WordCount example:

git clone https://github.com/flare-db/flare-db.git
cd flare-db

# Build the example.
./gradlew :wordcount:shadowJar

# Submit the pipeline to the running FlareDB instance.
./gradlew :wordcount:run

The run task starts com.flaredb.example.WordCount and submits the pipeline to your local FlareDB instance.

To learn how to build and run your own pipelines, see Run a Beam pipeline.

5. Stop the instance

flare down

flare down stops the running FlareDB instance. Run flare up again when you want to start it.

Next steps

• Run a Beam pipeline — add the FlareDB runner to your own project.
• FlareDB I/O — read from and write to FlareDB tables.
• SQL shell — query your data with SQL.

CLI reference

Command	Description
flare init	Create the local directories and download the FlareDB engine and worker components. Run once.
flare up	Start a local FlareDB instance on port 8099.
flare down	Stop the running instance.
flare sql	Launch the interactive SQL shell against the local warehouse.
flare --version	Print the CLI version.
flare --help	List all available commands.