How to use the command 'stripe' (with examples)

The Stripe Command Line Interface (CLI) is a powerful tool for interacting directly with your Stripe account. It offers a convenient way to manage your resources, execute tasks, and test webhook integrations from your terminal. Whether you are monitoring real-time events, creating customers, or simulating webhooks, the Stripe CLI can streamline your workflow by providing a straightforward interface for these tasks. Below, we’ll delve into various use cases of the Stripe CLI with detailed examples to illustrate its capabilities.

Use case 1: Following the logs of activity on the account

Code:

stripe logs tail

Motivation: Monitoring real-time activity on your Stripe account can help you quickly identify and troubleshoot issues as they arise. By using the logs tail command, you gain immediate insight into the transactions and operations occurring within your account, allowing for proactive management and rapid response to any anomalies.

Explanation:

• stripe: This is the command-line tool being used to interact with your Stripe account.
• logs: Refers to the command for accessing logs within the Stripe account.
• tail: This sub-command continuously displays new logs as they occur, similar to the Unix tail -f behavior. It provides a live view of the ongoing activity, which is essential for real-time monitoring and debugging.

Example Output:

2023-07-25 15:23:47 --> Charge created: ch_1JYxF2H4EzwVjzE1JxkdDbnq
2023-07-25 15:23:50 --> Payment succeeded for charge: ch_1JYxF2H4EzwVjzE1JxkdDbnq
2023-07-25 15:23:52 --> Customer created: cus_JYxQ2F9Lnfdjk23

Use case 2: Listening for events with specific filtering and forwarding

Code:

stripe listen --events="charge.succeeded" --forward-to="localhost:3000/events"

Motivation: Listening for specific events is crucial when developing applications that rely on webhooks for immediate notifications from Stripe. Filtering these events on names, like charge.succeeded, ensures that your application only responds to relevant activities. Additionally, forwarding these events to a local server is essential for testing the integration of webhooks in a development environment.

Explanation:

• stripe: The command to interact with your Stripe account.
• listen: Initiates a process to listen for events sent to your Stripe account.
• --events="charge.succeeded": This option filters the events to only those with the specific name, charge.succeeded. This helps in focusing on successful charge events for particular handling or processing.
• --forward-to="localhost:3000/events": This option specifies a local server endpoint where the filtered events should be sent, enabling you to test how your application handles these webhook events without deploying to a production environment.

Example Output:

--> 2023-07-25 15:25:03: Webhook received: charge.succeeded
Payload:
{
  "id": "evt_1JYxF3H4EzwVjzE1UydR4UVm",
  "object": "event",
  "api_version": "2020-08-27",
  ...
}
Forwarded to: http://localhost:3000/events

Use case 3: Sending a test webhook event

Code:

stripe trigger charge.succeeded

Motivation: During development, it’s essential to test how your application handles different webhook events from Stripe. By simulating a charge.succeeded event, you can verify your application’s response to successfully processed payments without needing to wait for an actual transaction. This ensures your application’s logic is correctly implemented and ready for production use.

Explanation:

• stripe: The command-line utility to interact with your Stripe account.
• trigger: This command allows the user to simulate or trigger specific Stripe events for testing.
• charge.succeeded: Specifies the type of event to be simulated, which is a successful charge. This allows you to test the handling of this particular event type in your application.

Example Output:

Triggering `charge.succeeded` for account: acct_123ABCDE
{
  "id": "evt_1JYxF4H4EzwVjzE1Vy2RpCdF",
  "object": "event",
  "type": "charge.succeeded",
  ...
}

Use case 4: Creating a customer

Code:

stripe customers create --email="test@example.com" --name="Jenny Rosen"

Motivation: Creating customers programmatically is essential for automating the onboarding and account management processes within your application. This use case demonstrates how to utilize the Stripe CLI to add customers directly from the terminal, which can be useful during development and testing phases, as well as in production scripts.

Explanation:

• stripe: The command-line interface tool for interacting with Stripe.
• customers: Refers to the specific resource type that you want to manage, in this instance, the customer data.
• create: This action creates a new customer record in your Stripe account.
• --email="test@example.com": A flag to set the customer’s email, which is a unique identifier and a required field for the customer’s contact information.
• --name="Jenny Rosen": A flag to set the full name of the customer, adding more personalized data to the customer profile in Stripe.

Example Output:

{
  "id": "cus_K0o3zHfA0y1u94",
  "object": "customer",
  "email": "test@example.com",
  "name": "Jenny Rosen",
  ...
}

Use case 5: Printing events to JSON format

Code:

stripe listen --print-json

Motivation: Receiving events in JSON format is beneficial for applications that need to interface with other APIs or services requiring structured and readable data formats. This command ensures that webhook events captured by your Stripe listener are transferred in a standard JSON structure, providing flexibility for further processing, logging, or debugging.

Explanation:

• stripe: The CLI command to interface with your Stripe account.
• listen: Initiates listening for events from Stripe.
• --print-json: Instructs the command to output events in the JSON format, which is compatible with most applications and services that process and store data.

Example Output:

{
  "id": "evt_1JYxF5H4EzwVjzE1Wy8C4Cms",
  "object": "event",
  "type": "charge.succeeded",
  "data": {
    ...
  }
}

Conclusion:

The Stripe CLI is an invaluable tool for developers working with Stripe, providing a host of functionalities that facilitate development, debugging, and management of Stripe integrations. From real-time monitoring of account activities and testing webhook endpoints to creating customer profiles and outputting JSON data, the Stripe CLI simplifies many complex tasks, helping developers build more robust payment processing systems. Each command can be tailored to specific needs, ensuring that any integration with Stripe can be effectively managed directly from the command line.