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Ardent supports two CLI authentication modes:
  • Browser login for local development.
  • API tokens for CI, scripts, and other headless environments.

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ardent login

Open your browser to authenticate with GitHub or email: 
ardent login
After login, Ardent automatically selects your project and connector if you only have one of each, so you can go straight to ardent branch create. 
✓ Logged in as vikram@tryardent.com

  Auto-selected project 'my-app'
  Auto-selected connector 'my-app-db'
  Ready to branch:
  ardent branch create <name>

✓ Logged in as vikram@tryardent.com

3 projects found.
Next step: select a project: ardent project switch <name>
List your projects: ardent project list

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Token login

For one-off headless login, pass a token directly: 
ardent login --token <your-token>
For repeat automation, prefer the ARDENT_TOKEN environment variable in a clean CI environment. It avoids writing a session to disk and makes the job’s credential source obvious: 
export ARDENT_TOKEN="sk-ard_..."
ardent project list
ardent branch create pr-123 --print-url
If a machine already has a stored browser or token login, the stored token is used before ARDENT_TOKEN. In CI, run on a clean runner or run ardent logout before setting ARDENT_TOKEN if you need to guarantee the environment variable is the only credential source. In GitHub Actions: 
env:
  ARDENT_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.ARDENT_TOKEN }}

steps:
  - run: npm install -g ardent-cli
  - run: ardent logout  # important on self-hosted runners; harmless on clean runners
  - run: ardent project switch my-project
  - run: ardent connector switch prod-db
  - run: echo "DATABASE_URL=$(ardent branch create pr-${{ github.run_id }} --print-url)" >> "$GITHUB_ENV"
Create and revoke API tokens from Ardent dashboard > Settings > API keys. Store tokens in your secret manager and rotate them if they are exposed.

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ardent status

Check your current authentication, project, connector, and branch: 
ardent status

✓ Authenticated
  Email:   vikram@tryardent.com
  Org:     Ardent
If the CLI is authenticated only through ARDENT_TOKEN, status may show token-based authentication and ask you to run ardent login to refresh profile details. That is fine for CI.

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ardent logout

Clear stored credentials, stored API URL, current selections, and cached workspace data from this machine: 
ardent logout
This does not revoke API tokens in the dashboard. Revoke tokens from Settings > API keys when you want to invalidate them.