Quick Ionic 2 CLI Reference

Published on January 11, 2017

The Ionic 2 CLI can do many things for us and save us from writing a lot of boilerplate code. It for example generate pages and services, run, emulate or build your projects and generate app resources. Sometimes though we just can’t seem to remember the command we need. This quick reference should help-out for some of the most useful commands.

Installing the CLI

If you don’t have the Ionic CLI installed yet, install it with npm:

$ npm install -g ionic

Or with Yarn:

$ yarn global add ionic

Checking your install

Use info to get information about your Ionic environment and version:

$ ionic info

Starting a new project

Starts a new Ionic 2 project with the blank template:

$ ionic start MyProject blank --v2

The available templates are tabs, sidemenu and blank. If no template is provided, the project will default to using the tabs template.

Adding platforms

Add a target platform to your project like this:

$ ionic platform add android

Serving

Serve your app on your local machine with serve:

$ ionic serve

Serve on a different port:

$ ionic serve --port 7777

Serve with –lab to see your app side by side on multiple platforms:

$ ionic serve --lab

Serve without live reload:

$ ionic serve --nolivereload

Generating pages and providers

Generate a new page:

$ ionic g page NewPage

Generate a service (provider):

$ ionic g provider AppLogger

List the available generators:

$ ionic g --list

Building a project

Use the build command to build a project for the targeted platforms:

$ ionic build

Build only to a specific platform by providing the platform name:

$ ionic build ios

Build for production:

$ ionic build ios --prod --release

Generating resources

Generate the app icon and splash screen with resources:

$ ionic resources

Generate resources for a specific platform:

$ ionic resources android

Generate just the icon:

$ ionic resources --icon

Just the splash screen:

$ ionic resources --splash

Emulating

Start your app on an emulator:

$ ionic emulate ios

Emulate with live reload:

$ ionic emulate ios --livereload

Emulate in debug mode:

$ ionic emulate ios --debug

Running

Run on a connected iOS device:

$ ionic run ios --device

Run with debug info:

$ ionic run android --debug

Run for production:

$ ionic run android --prod --release

Ionic Native

Add an Ionic Native plugin to your project:

$ ionic plugin add cordova-plugin-contacts

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Alligator

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Alligator.io is a developer-focused resource that offers tutorials and insights on a wide range of modern front-end technologies, including Angular 2+, Vue.js, React, TypeScript, Ionic, and JavaScript.

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