Authenticate the Staplehire CLI

Use staplehire login for local development, or set STAPLEHIRE_KEY for agents, scripts, and CI.

staplehire login
staplehire whoami

Quickstart

login opens your browser, completes PKCE OAuth, validates the key, and writes STAPLEHIRE_KEY to .env in the current directory.

staplehire login

Verify the active key and organization:

staplehire whoami

Example output:

{
  "user": { "id": "usr_...", "email": "you@company.com" },
  "organization": { "id": "org_...", "name": "Acme Corp" }
}

The CLI resolves your API key in this order.

Priority	Source	Example
1	`--api-key` flag	`staplehire --api-key sh_live_xxx roles list`
2	`STAPLEHIRE_KEY` env var	`export STAPLEHIRE_KEY=sh_live_xxx`
3	`.env` in cwd	Written by `staplehire login`

Do not run browser login in automation. Create an API key in Staplehire settings and expose it as STAPLEHIRE_KEY.

export STAPLEHIRE_KEY=sh_live_xxx
staplehire doctor -q
staplehire whoami | jq '.organization.id'

staplehire logout

Example output:

{ "logged_out": true, "env_path": "/path/to/project/.env", "key_removed_from_env": true }

Error	Fix
`AuthenticationError`	Run `staplehire login` or set `STAPLEHIRE_KEY`
`PermissionError`	Confirm the key belongs to the right organization
`ValidationError`	Check the command flags and field names

It writes STAPLEHIRE_KEY to .env in the current directory.

Yes. Use --api-key before the subcommand.

Yes, but it is a deprecated alias for staplehire login. Related: Install the Staplehire CLI · Use the Staplehire CLI in CI · CLI errors