sdc-lite

sdc-lite

sdc-lite is a CLI tool to interact with network operating system (NOS) configurations based on YANG schemas.
It provides powerful capabilities for working with configurations — from schema management to validation — and also allows configuration format conversion.

With sdc-lite, you can:

• Load YANG schemas
• Validate configurations against loaded schemas
• Compare and inspect configuration differences
• Blame resulting config to see the contributing intents
• Convert configurations between formats (e.g., load a config in json_ietf format, then output it as xml)

Installation

You can install sdc-lite in several ways:

1. One-Liner install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdcio/sdc-lite/main/install.sh | bash

2. Download from GitHub Releases (recommended)

Prebuilt binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows are available.

1. One-Liner install
2. Visit the Releases page.
3. Download the archive for your platform.
4. Extract the binary and place it somewhere in your PATH:

tar -xvf sdc-lite_<version>_<os>_<arch>.tar.gz
sudo mv sdc-lite /usr/local/bin/

3. Build from source

If you have Go installed:

git clone https://github.com/sdcio/sdc-lite.git
cd sdc-lite
go build -o sdc-lite main.go

4. Install with go install

If you just want the latest main branch build:

go install github.com/sdcio/sdc-lite@latest

Enabling Shell Completions

sdc-lite provides tab-completion for commands, flags, and target names.

After installation, you can enable completions for your shell:

Bash

sdc-lite completion bash > ~/.bash_completion.d/sdc-lite
echo "source ~/.bash_completion.d/sdc-lite" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Zsh

mkdir -p ~/.zsh/completions
sdc-lite completion zsh > ~/.zsh/completions/_sdc-lite
echo "fpath=(~/.zsh/completions $fpath)" >> ~/.zshrc
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit
source ~/.zshrc

Fish

mkdir -p ~/.config/fish/completions
sdc-lite completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/sdc-lite.fish

Tip: If you use the provided install.sh script, completions are installed automatically for Bash, Zsh, and Fish.

Examples

Load a schema:

sdc-lite schema load -t router1 -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdcio/config-server/refs/heads/main/example/schemas/schema-nokia-srl-24.10.1.yaml

Creates a target by the name of router1, downloads the referenced schema data and assignes them to the target.

IMPORTANT: The schema.yaml is a schema definition file used by sdc. The file format is described here sdc schema doc. Example schema definitions for different vendors can be found here as well.

Load a baseline / running config

sdc-lite config load -t router1 --file-format json --intent-name running --file https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdcio/sdc-lite/refs/tags/v0.1.0/data/config/running/running_srl_01.json 

Output:

Target: router1
File: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdcio/sdc-lite/refs/tags/v0.1.0/data/config/running/running_srl_01.json - Name: running, Prio: 2147483547, Flag: update, Format: json - successfully loaded

Load config snippet:

sdc-lite config load -t router1 --file https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdcio/sdc-lite/refs/tags/v0.1.0/data/config/additions/srl_01.json --file-format json --intent-name config1 --priority 50

Output:

Target: router1
File: data/config/additions/srl_01.json - Name: config1, Prio: 50, Flag: update, Format: json - successfully loaded

Load sdc config intent

sdc-lite config load -t router1 --file-format sdc  --file https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdcio/sdc-lite/refs/tags/v0.1.0/data/config/additions/srl_01_sdc.yaml

Output:

Target: router1
File: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdcio/sdc-lite/refs/tags/v0.1.0/data/config/additions/srl_01_sdc.yaml - Name: test-orphan, Prio: 10, Flag: update, Format: json - successfully loaded

Show Target details:

sdc-lite target show -t router1 

Output:

Target: router1 (/home/mava/.cache/sdc-lite/targets/router1)
    Schema:
      Name: srl.nokia.sdcio.dev
      Version: 24.10.1
    Intent: config1
      Prio: 50
      Flag: update
      Format: json
    Intent: running
      Prio: 2147483547
      Flag: update
      Format: json
    Intent: test-orphan
      Prio: 10
      Flag: update
      Format: json

Show current configuration:

sdc-lite config show -t router1 -o json -a --path /interface[name="ethernet-1/1"]

Output formats can also be json_ietf or xml. If you want to see only addtions on top of running, remove the -a option.

Output

Target: router1
{
 "admin-state": "enable",
 "name": "ethernet-1/1",
 "subinterface": [
  {
   "index": 2,
   "type": "bridged",
   "vlan": {
    "encap": {
     "single-tagged": {
      "vlan-id": 2
     }
    }
   }
  }
 ],
 "vlan-tagging": true
}

Validate a config:

sdc-lite config validate -t router1

Output:

Target: router1
Validations performed:
  leafref: 25
  length: 113
  mandatory: 5
  min/max: 4
  must-statement: 785
  pattern: 23
  range: 125
Successful Validated!

Diff config changes:

sdc-lite config diff -t router1 --type patch 

Output:

Target: router1
@@ -1720,5 +1720,19 @@
     {
       "admin-state": "enable",
-      "name": "ethernet-1/1"
+      "name": "ethernet-1/1",
+      "subinterface": [
+        {
+          "index": 2,
+          "type": "bridged",
+          "vlan": {
+            "encap": {
+              "single-tagged": {
+                "vlan-id": 2
+              }
+            }
+          }
+        }
+      ],
+      "vlan-tagging": true
     },
     {
---
@@ -1740,4 +1754,9 @@
         }
       ]
+    },
+    {
+      "admin-state": "enable",
+      "description": "k8s-system0-dummy",
+      "name": "system0"
     }
   ],
---

Blame - show intent sources of configuration

sdc-lite config blame -t router1 -p /interface

Output:

Target: router1
      -----    │     🎯 interface
      -----    │     ├── 📦 ethernet-1/1
    config1    │     │   ├── 🍃 admin-state -> enable
    config1    │     │   ├── 🍃 name -> ethernet-1/1
      -----    │     │   ├── 📦 subinterface
      -----    │     │   │   └── 📦 2
    config1    │     │   │       ├── 🍃 index -> 2
    config1    │     │   │       ├── 🍃 type -> bridged
      -----    │     │   │       └── 📦 vlan
      -----    │     │   │           └── 📦 encap
      -----    │     │   │               └── 📦 single-tagged
    config1    │     │   │                   └── 🍃 vlan-id -> 2
    config1    │     │   └── 🍃 vlan-tagging -> true
      -----    │     ├── 📦 mgmt0
    running    │     │   ├── 🍃 admin-state -> enable
    running    │     │   ├── 🍃 name -> mgmt0
      -----    │     │   └── 📦 subinterface
      -----    │     │       └── 📦 0
    running    │     │           ├── 🍃 admin-state -> enable
    running    │     │           ├── 🍃 index -> 0
    running    │     │           ├── 🍃 ip-mtu -> 1500
      -----    │     │           ├── 📦 ipv4
    running    │     │           │   ├── 🍃 admin-state -> enable
    running    │     │           │   └── 🍃 dhcp-client -> {}
      -----    │     │           └── 📦 ipv6
    running    │     │               ├── 🍃 admin-state -> enable
    running    │     │               └── 🍃 dhcp-client -> {}
      -----    │     └── 📦 system0
test-orphan    │         ├── 🍃 admin-state -> enable
test-orphan    │         ├── 🍃 description -> k8s-system0-dummy
test-orphan    │         └── 🍃 name -> system0

Remove the target for cleanup

sdc-lite target remove -t router1 

Output:

Target: router1
INFO[0000] target router1 - successfully removed        

Usage

The general syntax is:

sdc-lite [command] [flags]

Use --help with any command to see its options:

sdc-lite schema load --help

Command Reference

config — Config-based actions

Manage and inspect device configurations.

Load a single config file

sdc-lite config load -t <target> --file <path|-> --file-format <format> [--priority 500] [--intent-name <name>]

Flags:

• --file string – Config file path or - for stdin
• --file-format string – One of json, json-ietf, xml, sdc, etc.
• --priority int – Config priority (default 500)
• --intent-name string – Name of the configuration intent
• --rpc - Print the rpc definition for the actual command

Bulk load configs

sdc-lite config bulk -t <target> --files file1.yaml,file2.yaml

• --files stringSlice – List of files to load

Blame config changes

sdc-lite config blame -t <target> [--include-defaults]

• --include-defaults – Include schema defaults
• --rpc - Print the rpc definition for the actual command

Show configuration

sdc-lite config show -t <target> [-o json] [-a]

• -o, --out-format string – Output format (json, xml,json_ietf, etc.)
• -a, --all – Show entire config, not just updates
• --rpc - Print the rpc definition for the actual command

Diff config with running

sdc-lite config diff -t <target> [--type side-by-side-patch] [--context 2] [--no-color] [-o json]

• --type string – Diff type
• --context int – Context lines (default 2)
• --no-color – Disable colored output
• -o, --out-format string – Output format
• --rpc - Print the rpc definition for the actual command

Validate configuration

sdc-lite config validate -t <target>

schema — Schema-based actions

Manage YANG schema versions and definitions.

List schemas

sdc-lite schema list

Load schema

sdc-lite schema load -t <target> -f schema.yaml [--cleanup]

• -f, --schema-def string – Schema definition file (required)
• -c, --cleanup – Cleanup schema directory after load (default true)
• --rpc - Print the rpc definition for the actual command

Remove schema

sdc-lite schema remove [-f schema.yaml] [--vendor <vendor>] [--version <version>]

target — Target-based actions

Manage configured targets.

Show target details

sdc-lite target show -t <target>

Remove target

sdc-lite target remove -t <target>

pipeline — Pipeline-based actions

Automate sequences of configuration operations.

Run a pipeline

sdc-lite pipeline run --file <pipeline.json>

• --file string – Path to the pipeline definition (JSON) file or - for stdin. The pipeline file consists of sequential steps, each specified as a JSON-RPC message.

Persistent Flags

Some commands share persistent flags:

• -t, --target string – The target to use (required)
• -o, --out-format string – Output format (json, xml, etc.)

Join us

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License and Code of Conduct

Code is under the Apache License 2.0, documentation is CC BY 4.0.

The SDC project is following the CNCF Code of Conduct. More information and links about the CNCF Code of Conduct are here.