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The sail CLI is a standalone terminal tool. Use it to create and manage sailboxes, open interactive shells, log in, and expose ports. It is a single native binary with no runtime dependencies. The CLI and the SDKs are separate products. If you only want to drive Sail from code, install an SDK. If you already use the Python SDK, you have the CLI too. pip install sail puts sail on your PATH.

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macOS and Linux

curl -fsSL https://cli.sailresearch.com/install.sh | sh
This installs the latest sail into ~/.local/bin. If that directory is not on your PATH, the installer prints the line to add.

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Windows

irm https://cli.sailresearch.com/install.ps1 | iex
This installs sail.exe into %LOCALAPPDATA%\sail\bin and adds it to your user PATH. Restart your shell afterward.

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Verify

sail --version

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Options

Both installers read a few environment variables.
VariableEffect
SAIL_CLI_VERSIONInstall a specific version, for example 0.2.7. Default: latest.
SAIL_INSTALL_DIRInstall into a different directory.
Pin a version: 
curl -fsSL https://cli.sailresearch.com/install.sh | SAIL_CLI_VERSION=0.2.7 sh

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Upgrade

Re-run the installer to upgrade to the latest version. It overwrites the existing binary in place. 
curl -fsSL https://cli.sailresearch.com/install.sh | sh
If you installed the CLI through the Python SDK, upgrade it with pip install -U sail (or the uv equivalent) instead.

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Next steps

Log in and open the interactive shell: 
sail auth login
sail shell
The Sailboxes guide covers what you can do from there, including creating and connecting to sailboxes. For every command and flag, see the CLI reference.