Flowon CLI Tools
Version: 1.0
Last Updated: January 2025
Introduction
At Flowon, we value software development engineering processes and best practices. Many enterprise projects fail not because of technical limitations, but because of the lack of sound engineering practices around deployment, versioning, and environment management. Flowon CLI Tools embodies our commitment to bringing modern DevOps practices to the Dataverse ecosystem.
Continuous Integration (CI) is the practice of frequently merging code changes into a shared repository, where automated builds and tests verify each change. Continuous Delivery (CD) extends this by automatically deploying validated changes to testing or production environments. Together, CI/CD forms the backbone of modern software delivery, enabling teams to release high-quality software faster and more reliably.
Flowon CLI Tools is an enterprise-grade command-line toolkit that brings these practices to Dataverse and Flowon projects. It automates the complete lifecycle of exporting, versioning, transforming, and deploying solutions, configurations, and data across environments - turning what was once a manual, error-prone process into a reliable, repeatable pipeline.
Why CI/CD Matters
Organizations that adopt CI/CD practices experience:
- 70% reduction in deployment failures
- 50% faster time to market for new features
- 90% reduction in manual deployment effort
- Near-zero environment drift between stages
- Complete auditability of all changes
Core Capabilities
What Gets Exported/Imported
| Artifact Type | Description | File Format |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamics Solutions | Standard CRM solutions (entities, forms, views, plugins, workflows) | Managed/Unmanaged .zip |
| Flowon Package (.flop) | Logic Blocks, Flows, Processes, APIs, Events, Service Connections, Recipes, Schedules | .flop (structured XML) |
| Configuration Data | Environment-specific settings, feature flags, URLs | XML mapping files |
| Business Data | Reference data, lookup tables, seed data | XML data files |
| Localized Resources | Multi-language labels, messages, templates | XML mapping files |
| Service Connections | External API configurations, credentials, certificates | XML mapping files |
Tooling Capabilities Summary
| Capability | Command | Description |
|---|---|---|
| List Features | flowon-dynamics features | Lists installed Flowon features |
| List Projects | flowon-dynamics projects | Lists Flowon projects |
| Export | flowon-dynamics export | Exports Dataverse and Flowon artifacts |
| Import | flowon-dynamics import | Imports artifacts to target environment |
| Generate Mappings | flowon-dynamics generate-mappings | Creates data mapping files |
| Apply Mappings | flowon-dynamics apply-mappings | Applies transformations |
| Generate OpenAPI | flowon-dynamics generate-openapi | Generates API documentation |
| Enable Plugins | flowon-dynamics enable-plugins | Activates Flowon plugins |
| Disable Plugins | flowon-dynamics disable-plugins | Deactivates Flowon plugins |
| Enable Recipe | flowon-dynamics enable-recipe | Activates Logic Recipes |
| Disable Recipe | flowon-dynamics disable-recipe | Deactivates Logic Recipes |
| Increment Version | flowon-dynamics increment-solution-version | Bumps solution version |
| Generate Docs | flowon-dynamics docs | Generates documentation |
Next Steps
- CI/CD Challenge - Understanding the Dataverse CI/CD gap
- Installation - Install and configure Flowon CLI Tools
- Command Reference - Complete command documentation
- Export Operations - Export solutions and artifacts
- Import Operations - Deploy to target environments
- Data Mapping - Environment-specific transformations
- Pipeline Integration - Azure DevOps and GitHub Actions