The Standalone ESC CLI Retired: Use pulumi env

Pulumi ESC CLI v0.26.0 is the latest standalone release. We encourage users to use the Pulumi CLI instead.

The ESC repository has been archived and the code now lives under pulumi.

Why are we making this change

Pulumi ESC is the best way to store and manage configuration and secrets in your Pulumi programs and while you can certainly use ESC to store secrets and configurations for your applications or to manage your AI agents’ credentials, it’s still a core feature of Pulumi Cloud, and we want to make sure we deliver a consistent experience across our entire suite.

In addition to consistency, ESC and the Pulumi CLI share a lot of capabilities to interface to Pulumi Cloud and we want to make it easier and simpler for our customers: it’s now easier to understand which Pulumi organization you are working with, which user is logged in, etc.

Playing nicer with humans and AI agents

A single CLI means one binary to install, one login to manage, and one place to look things up. This simplicity is beneficial whether the operator is a person or an agent.

AI agents love code, and they love CLIs. By unifying the Pulumi CLI and ESC we offer a single place to look up operations around your Pulumi programs. Agents can now reason better about where to store configuration and secrets, without being confused by multiple CLI options that interface against the same service.

Faster improvements

With a shared CLI, any improvement to account management is automatically delivered to both: Pulumi and ESC users. At the same time, both benefit from ESC improvements and new features from day 1.

ESC is a core component of our platform; a separate interface no longer makes sense.

The same code all along

If you’re wondering what actually changes under the hood: nothing about how the commands work. The pulumi env commands were never a reimplementation — the Pulumi CLI has built them from the ESC CLI’s own code since ESC’s first release, which is why the same command surface has always been available under pulumi env. What we’re retiring is a second way to ship and install that code, not the code itself.

Do I need to update?

If you are using the ESC CLI, you should switch as soon as possible, as the standalone binary will not get the latest features. Don’t worry — the mapping is mechanical, and the migration guide covers it command by command:

• esc env <command> becomes pulumi env <command>. For example, esc env ls becomes pulumi env ls.
• The esc open and esc run shortcuts become pulumi env open and pulumi env run.
• esc login, esc logout, and esc version become pulumi login, pulumi logout, and pulumi version.

If you are already using the Pulumi CLI, you have nothing to worry about; this has no effect since ESC commands were already available under the pulumi env sub-command.

Ready to switch? Install the Pulumi CLI if you don’t have it yet, then run pulumi env ls to see your environments. Every command is documented in the pulumi env reference.