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The AEM Command Line Interface allows web developers to create, develop, and deploy digital experiences using the Adobe Experience Manager Sites feature Edge Delivery Services. Some of this functionality was known as Franklin or Project Helix before.
Install aem as a global command. You need Node 12.11 or newer.
npm install -g @adobe/aem-cliIf this fails with File exists: /opt/homebrew/bin/hlx, please see here.
$ aem --help
Usage: aem <command> [options]
Commands:
aem up Run a AEM development server
aem import Run the AEM import server
aem content Manage local da.live content
Options:
--version Show version number [boolean]
--log-file, --logFile Log file (use "-" for stdout) [array] [default: "-"]
--log-level, --logLevel Log level
[string] [choices: "silly", "debug", "verbose", "info", "warn", "error"]
[default: "info"]
--tls-key, --tlsKey Path to .key file (for enabling TLS) [string]
--tls-cert, --tlsCert Path to .pem file (for enabling TLS) [string]
--help Show help [boolean]
use <command> --help to get command specific details.
for more information, find our manual at https://github.com/adobe/helix-cli
$ cd <my-cool-project> $ aem up
The --open argument takes a path, eg --open=/products/, will cause the browser to be openend at the specific location. Disable with --no-open'.
The --forward-browser-logs flag enables forwarding of browser console messages (log, error, warn, info) to the terminal. This is particularly useful for debugging client-side issues without having to open the browser's developer tools.
$ aem up --forward-browser-logs
When enabled, browser console messages will appear in your terminal with the following format:
[Browser:error] 2025-07-27T10:30:45.123Z http://localhost:3000/script.js:42 Error message here
This feature is especially helpful when:
- Debugging JavaScript errors in a headless environment
- Monitoring client-side behavior during development
- Working with AI coding assistants that need visibility into both server and client logs
The --html-folder option enables serving HTML files without extensions, useful for previewing content changes when you don't have access to the authoring system.
$ aem up --html-folder drafts # serves at /drafts/* $ aem up --html-folder html --html-mount / # serves at /* (root) $ aem up --html-folder drafts --html-mount /preview # serves at /preview/*
Use --html-mount to control the URL path where files are served. Without it, files are served at /FOLDER/*.
This enables two features:
- Extension-less URLs: Access /drafts/page (or /page with root mount) to serve the corresponding .html file
- Plain HTML with metadata: Create .plain.html files that are automatically wrapped with proper HTML structure and metadata processing
Plain HTML files contain only the main content and an optional metadata block. The CLI automatically:
- Wraps content in <html><head><body><header><main><footer> structure
- Merges in head.html content
- The metadata block is removed from the rendered content and converted to meta tags in the <head>.
When a request resolves to <stem>, the CLI looks up <stem>.html first and falls back to <stem>.plain.html. Pass --preferPlainHtml to reverse this order — useful when you keep both files side-by-side and want the plain version to win:
$ aem up --html-folder drafts --preferPlainHtml
- create the certificate
$ openssl req -new -newkey rsa:4096 -x509 -sha256 -days 365 -nodes -out server.crt -keyout server.key -subj "/CN=localhost"
this will create 2 files: server.crt and server.key
Alternatively, if your browser does not trust the certificate, you can use mkcert to generate a trusted certificate:
# Install mkcert via Homebrew or your preferred method, then run:
mkcert -cert-file server.crt -key-file server.key localhost 127.0.0.1- start aem with tls support
$ aem up --tls-cert server.crt --tls-key server.key
___ ________ ___ __ __ v14.26.1
/ | / ____/ |/ / _____(_)___ ___ __ __/ /___ _/ /_____ _____
/ /| | / __/ / /|_/ / / ___/ / __ `__ \/ / / / / __ `/ __/ __ \/ ___/
/ ___ |/ /___/ / / / (__ ) / / / / / / /_/ / / /_/ / /_/ /_/ / /
/_/ |_/_____/_/ /_/ /____/_/_/ /_/ /_/\__,_/_/\__,_/\__/\____/_/
info: Starting AEM dev server v14.26.1
info: Local AEM dev server up and running: https://localhost:3000/
- (optional) Add arguments to .env file:
$ echo -e "AEM_TLS_CERT=server.crt\nAEM_TLS_KEY=server.key" >> .env
All the command arguments can also be specified via environment variables. the .env file is loaded automatically.
example:
.env
AEM_OPEN=/products
AEM_PORT=8080
AEM_PAGES_URL=https://stage.myproject.comIn order to use a HTTP proxy (eg behind a corporate firewall), you can set the respective environment variables:
NO_PROXY is a list of host names (optionally with a port). If the input URL matches any of the entries in NO_PROXY, then the input URL should be fetched by a direct request (i.e. without a proxy).
Matching follows the following rules:
NO_PROXY=* disables all proxies. Space and commas may be used to separate the entries in the NO_PROXY list. If NO_PROXY does not contain any entries, then proxies are never disabled. If a port is added after the host name, then the ports must match. If the URL does not have an explicit port name, the protocol's default port is used. Generally, the proxy is only disabled if the host name is an exact match for an entry in the NO_PROXY list. The only exceptions are entries that start with a dot or with a wildcard; then the proxy is disabled if the host name ends with the entry. See test.js for examples of what should match and what does not.
*_PROXY The environment variable used for the proxy depends on the protocol of the URL. For example, https://example.com uses the "https" protocol, and therefore the proxy to be used is HTTPS_PROXY (NOT HTTP_PROXY, which is only used for http:-URLs).
If present, ALL_PROXY is used as fallback if there is no other match.
| option | variable | default | description |
|---|---|---|---|
| --log-file | AEM_LOG_FILE | - | Log file. use - to log to stdout |
| --log-level | AEM_LOG_LEVEL | info | Log level |
| option | variable | default | description |
|---|---|---|---|
| --port | AEM_PORT | 3000 | Development server port |
| --addr | AEM_ADDR | 127.0.0.1 | Development server bind address |
| --livereload | AEM_LIVERELOAD | true | Enable automatic reloading of modified sources in browser. |
| --no-livereload | AEM_NO_LIVERELOAD | false | Disable live-reload. |
| --forward-browser-logs | AEM_FORWARD_BROWSER_LOGS | false | Forward browser console logs to terminal. |
| --html-folder | AEM_HTML_FOLDER | undefined | Serve HTML files from folder without extensions. |
| --html-mount | AEM_HTML_MOUNT | /FOLDER | URL path where html-folder files are served. |
| --prefer-plain-html | AEM_PREFER_PLAIN_HTML | false | Prefer <stem>.plain.html over <stem>.html when both exist. |
| --open | AEM_OPEN | / | Open a browser window at specified path after server start. |
| --no-open | AEM_NO_OPEN | false | Disable automatic opening of browser window. |
| --tls-key | AEM_TLS_KEY | undefined | Path to .key file (for enabling TLS) |
| --tls-cert | AEM_TLS_CERT | undefined | Path to .pem file (for enabling TLS) |
The AEM Importer is an application that supports importing content to AEM.
$ cd <my-cool-project> $ aem import
Read the full AEM Importer documentation.
The aem content commands let you check out content from da.live locally, make bulk edits, and push changes back. The local content lives in a content/ folder in your project.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| aem content clone | Clone da.live content locally into content/ |
| aem content status | Show locally added, modified, and deleted content files |
| aem content diff | Show diff between local and remote content |
| aem content merge | Merge remote content into local files |
| aem content add | Stage changes in content/ (like git add) |
| aem content commit | Commit staged changes in content/ (like git commit) |
| aem content push | Push committed content/ changes to da.live (use content add & content commit first) |
When a content/ folder is present, aem up automatically serves content from it first, falling back to the proxy for any files not found locally. HTML files in content/ are wrapped with head.html and have their metadata blocks processed, so pages render the same way they would when served from da.live.
You can use npm run check to run the tests and check whether your code adheres to the aem-cli coding style.
Browser-injected scripts (LiveReload and console log forwarding) are maintained in a separate sub-project at packages/browser-injectables/. This isolation keeps browser testing dependencies separate from the main CLI.
- Injectable scripts are in packages/browser-injectables/src/
- No build step required - scripts are used directly
- Browser tests run only when injectable code changes
cd packages/browser-injectables
npm install
npm testThis error occurs when the server certificate is not trusted by Node.js. The typical cause is that connections to the server *.aem.page and *.hlx.page are intercepted by an enterprise proxy or firewall which is trying to inspect the traffic.
These proxies use a private certificate authority (CA) to sign the certificates of the servers they intercept. To make Node.js trust the server certificate, you need to add the CA certificate to the list of trusted CAs.
The CA certificate is typically provided by your IT department. You can ask them for the CA certificate and save it to a file, e.g. my-ca.crt.
Then you can use the NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS environment variable to make Node.js trust the CA certificate:
export NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=my-ca.crt
aem upIf you don't have access to the CA certificate from your IT department, you can extract it directly from your browser:
- Access the AEM admin URL in your browser (e.g., https://admin.hlx.page/sidekick/owner-name/repo-name/github-branch-name/config.json)
- Click on the padlock icon in the address bar and view the certificate details
- Export the certificate chain as a Base64 encoded .pem file
- Save it to a directory (e.g., certs/hlx.page.pem)
- Set the environment variable and run aem:
export NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=./certs/hlx.page.pem
aem upOn Windows, use set instead of export:
set NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=./certs/hlx.page.pem
aem upEither approach will make Node.js trust the server certificate and aem up should work.
If you try to install @adobe/aem-cli:
> npm install -g @adobe/aem-cli ... npm error EEXIST: file already exists npm error File exists: /opt/homebrew/bin/hlx npm error Remove the existing file and try again, or run npm
This can happen when you previously had installed this tool under its old package name @adobe/helix-cli. Starting with version 15.0.0, this tool was renamed aem and published as @adobe/aem-cli. The previous @adobe/helix-cli has been deprecated. However, the new package still provides the command line binary under the old name hlx in addition to aem, for backwards compatibility, which can lead to the npm install error.
To solve, first uninstall the old version, then install again with the new name:
npm uninstall -g @adobe/helix-cli npm install -g @adobe/aem-cli