One command, and your media is live on Cloudinary.

npx @cloudinary/cloud

Provisions a disposable Cloudinary cloud account — no signup, no credentials, no human in the loop. Working CLOUDINARY_URL credentials land in ./.env; a claim URL lets a human make the account permanent later (same credentials, assets retained).

Built for AI coding agents: unauthenticated, non-interactive, IP-locked delivery, TTL-bounded, rate-limited per IP.

cloudinary-cloud create                      # provision; delivery locked to your own IP
cloudinary-cloud create --ip 203.0.113.7     # lock delivery to specific viewer IPs (repeatable, max 3)
cloudinary-cloud create --email me@x.com     # pre-fill the claim page (never verified at creation)
cloudinary-cloud create --force              # replace an existing CLOUDINARY_URL in ./.env
cloudinary-cloud create --no-env             # don't touch ./.env — credentials are only printed
cloudinary-cloud create --json               # raw provisioning response for programmatic use

Running with no arguments defaults to create.

• TTY — human summary; the claim URL is the headline. Never opens a browser.
• non-TTY — greppable KEY=value lines (CLOUD_NAME=…, CLAIM_URL=…, …).
• --json — the raw API response plus env_file / env_file_action.

• If ./.env already contains CLOUDINARY_URL, create exits 1 without provisioning (clouds are rate-limited; don't burn one you won't store). --force replaces the line.
• If the .env write fails after provisioning (read-only cwd, CI, clouded runtime), the credentials are still printed in full with ENV_FILE_ACTION=failed and a warning — a provisioned cloud is never swallowed by a filesystem error.
• If .env isn't covered by .gitignore in a git repo, create warns after writing.
• Cloud media delivery is locked at the CDN edge to delivery_ips. By default the CLI sends none and the server locks delivery to the address the request came from — the right default when the caller is also the viewer. Explicit --ip values are sent verbatim. After creation the CLI checks (best-effort) whether this machine's public IP is in the returned allow-list, and warns with the exact fix if not — the API path and the delivery path can exit from different addresses behind VPNs and NAT pools.
• The claim URL and expiry are persisted to .env too (CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_CLAIM_URL, CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_EXPIRES_AT), so the claim path survives lost terminal output.
• Cloud lifetime is server-controlled (no TTL parameter in the API).
• Unclaimed clouds are reaped at expires_at, assets included. Claiming (a human opens claim_url and verifies an email) makes the account permanent with the same API key.
• Behind a corporate VPN or secure gateway (e.g. Cloudflare WARP) the API may see the request arriving from a private address and refuse with delivery_ips_not_public — the requester's address is always part of the delivery allow-list, so --ip cannot avoid it. Re-run from a connection the gateway does not route (pause the VPN for the one command, or use another network or host).

The provisioning client is exported for other tools:

import { provisionCloud, runCreate, REQUESTER_IP_SENTINEL } from '@cloudinary/cloud';

const account = await provisionCloud({ deliveryIps: [REQUESTER_IP_SENTINEL] });

npm install
npm run build      # compile TypeScript to dist/
npm test           # build + node:test (no network; tests own their HTTP stubs)

Zero runtime dependencies. Point the CLI at any environment:

CLOUDINARY_API_HOST=https://staging.example node dist/index.js create

Speaks POST /v1_1/provisioning/clouds (public, unauthenticated, rate limited per IP):

• Request: delivery_ips (optional; array of 1–3 public IPs and/or "requester_ip" — the server always appends the requester's resolved address), email (optional, unverified pre-fill). No TTL parameter — lifetime is server-set.
• Response: id, email, expires_at, delivery_ips, claim_url, guidance, and credentials in product_environments[0].api_access_keys[] (key/secret).
• Errors: { error: { category, code?, message, details? } } with codes such as delivery_ips_not_public, ip_rate_limit_exceeded, global_rate_limit_exceeded, agent_registration_disabled.

New response fields flow into --json automatically; the command surface treats its flags as a stable API.