# CLI overview

> The role of the uip CLI, how it connects your machine to UiPath, and how it relates to skills.

The `uip` CLI is the command-line tool that connects your machine to UiPath. It is the bridge your coding agent uses to act against your organization — authenticating, scaffolding projects, running and publishing automations, and reaching Orchestrator and other platform services.

## What the CLI is for

You can think of the CLI as the hands, and skills as the know-how. Skills tell your agent *how* to do a piece of UiPath work; the CLI is *how that work reaches the platform*. The same CLI also installs and refreshes the skills themselves, through `uip skills install`.

## Authentication

The CLI signs in to a UiPath environment and selects a tenant. By default it connects to `cloud.uipath.com`; you can point it at another environment with an authority, and choose a tenant interactively or by name. Once signed in, the CLI and your agent act within that organization and tenant.

## How you and your agent share it

In normal use, your coding agent runs most CLI commands for you as it carries out a task. You run the CLI directly for a few setup and housekeeping actions — signing in, installing or refreshing skills, and checking status.

The commands you will run yourself are listed in [Essential commands](cli-essential-commands.md). For the complete command set, see the [UiPath CLI documentation](https://docs.uipath.com/uipath-cli).