💻 3 Salesforce CLI Commands Every Apex Developer Should Be Using

If you work with Apex daily, you know how time-consuming it can be to open dev console, run tests, and pull logs manually.
Luckily, Salesforce CLI (now moving toward the sf namespace) makes life a lot easier. Here are 3 commands that have saved me hours — and honestly, I wish I started using them sooner.

Apex Get Log📃

🔍 sf apex get log — No More Clicking Through Debug Logs
Ever had to:

• Run some Apex in the Dev Console
• Go to Setup → Debug Logs
• Download the log
• Open it in VS Code just to find out what went wrong?

This command saves you from all that:

sf apex get log
Pulls the debug logs for your user right into your system.

💡 Flags to keep in mind!!

• 🏀--log-id: Lets you fetch the log by Id.
  sf apex get log --log-id <log id>

  📌Bonus Tip: Use sf apex list log to get a list of logs with Ids and you can use this id in above command to fetch the log!

• 🏀--number: Lets you fetch the last N logs.
  sf apex get log --number 3
• 🏀--output-dir: directory for saving the log files (absolute path or relative to the current working directory).
  sf apex get log --number 2 --output-dir ./

Super helpful when you’re debugging tests or checking what your code actually did behind the scenes, without opening the developer console!!

📚Do read more about apex get log from Salesforce documentation

Apex Run Test🧪

✅ sf apex run test — Run Tests Fast, Get Results Instantly (Or Asynchronously)

Why wait for tests to run in the UI when you can do it right from the terminal?

sf apex run test --class-names MyTestClass
Runs the test class and gives you a command with test run id to retrieve test results

Run with –synchronous or increase –wait timeout to wait for results.

💡 Flags to keep in mind!!

• 🏀--synchronous: Run it synchronously and wait for results (recommended for local dev).
• 🏀--wait: specify a wait time in mins and wait for results.
• 🏀--concise: Keep the output clean and to the point.
• 🏀--output-dir : Execute test and save results to a local directory --output-dir <path to outputdir>
• 🏀--result-format: Choose how the results show up – human (easy to read), json (for automation), or tap.

Perfect for quickly checking if your fix worked — or catching that one line of code that broke everything.

📚Do read more about apex run test from Salesforce documentation

Apex Run 📟

🎮 sf apex run — Execute Apex Without the Dev Console
Have a quick Apex script you want to run? Don’t open the browser — just write it locally and run it via:

sf apex run
Executes Apex code from a file or in interactive mode.

sf apex run without any flag will start the interactive mode. You can write the code want to execute, press Enter key after each line and Press CTRL+D when finished. This executes the code and will give you the log! You can also execute the code from a .apex file using --file flag sf apex run --file samplecode.apex

📌Bonus Tip: You can select apex code from any file, then open command palette(ctrl+shift+p) and select >SFDX: Execute Anonymous Apex with Currently Selected Text to execute the same anonymously and get log in Output tab.

📚Do read more about apex run from Salesforce documentation

🔚 Wrapping Up

These 3 commands may seem small, but they seriously boost your productivity for sure. This saves time for opening your org and a lot of clicks. If you’re an Apex dev and haven’t tried these yet — now’s the time. Once you start working from the CLI, it’s hard to go back.
If you’ve got any other CLI favorites, feel free to drop them in the comments — always up for learning new tricks. ⚡

Hope this helps fellow Apex devs out there save some clicks and stay in the flow 📈!!

What’s your favorite sf command? Do comment below📝!!!