CLItrail documentation

Advertise on social and search, and let Google Ads, Meta, TikTok and X optimise for the install itself. CLItrail links each install of your command-line tool to the visit, ad and campaign that led to it, and sends it back to them as a conversion, not a click.

Most CLI installs start on a website and finish in a terminal. Tracking parameters rarely survive the copy and paste in between, and people and their agents strip them anyway. CLItrail connects the two ends with one website tag and one installer hook. Your install command and your links stay exactly as they are.

#Start from your role

• I run growth

  What you get, where installs go, and how to read the numbers.

  • How attribution works
  • Send installs to ad platforms
  • Channels and campaigns
  • Why an install is unattributed
  • Plans and limits

• I’m the engineer

  The tag, the hook, your CSP and consent, and how to check it.

  • Quickstart
  • Framework guides
  • Install paths
  • What is collected
  • Hook diagnostics

• I use a coding agent

  Let Claude Code or another agent write the changes, then review them.

  • Set up with your agent
  • Setup generator
  • Website SDK reference

#What you need

• A CLItrail organisation, which your first sign-in with Google or an email link creates on Free (attribution runs on Standard or Enterprise), and a registered website: the exact origin people install from, including www if you use it.
• Access to the HTML of the page that shows your install command.
• An installer, package script or CLI entry point that can run a shell script on macOS or Linux after a successful install.

#Where it works

Links an install to the visit on the same Mac or Linux computer in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave and Vivaldi, and in Safari through the handoff command.1

Attribution runs on the Standard and Enterprise plans. On Free, CLItrail counts visits and installs and shows their browsers and systems, but matches nothing, and installs reported on Free are never matched later. The support matrix lists every browser, system and install context, with the one step that gets attribution where the default setup can’t.

#Popular

• QuickstartTag, hook and a first attributed install in about five minutes.
• Setup generatorPick your framework, install paths and destinations; get every snippet.
• Google AdsPaste a service account key and upload installs as click conversions.
• X AdsSend installs to the X Conversions API with your own app’s keys.
• LogsEvery request received and sent, with its exact body.
• Support matrixEvery browser and system, and how to get attribution there.

#Notes

1. On macOS and Linux the hook searches the profile folders of Chrome, Chrome Beta, Chrome Dev, Chromium, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi and Firefox; on macOS also Chrome Canary, and on Linux also Zen and the Snap and Flatpak builds. Safari, WebKit browsers and forks that name themselves, such as Opera, get the handoff command from prepareInstall in auto mode. For browsers that present themselves as Chrome or Firefox but keep their own profiles, such as Arc or LibreWolf, use handoff mode. Support matrix · Methodology