Cloudflare has launched cf, a new open beta command-line interface built to give agents access to the company’s entire API surface, replacing the narrower scope of Wrangler with a tool designed for the way software is increasingly being developed and deployed. The company says the new CLI is meant to make Cloudflare’s services easier for both agents and humans to use, while standardizing configuration and expanding command coverage from roughly 280 operations to more than 3,000.
Why Cloudflare is introducing cf
Cloudflare says agent usage of Wrangler has grown quickly over the past year. In March 2026, agents accounted for a quarter of Wrangler use, up from single-digit percentages the year before, and last week that figure reached 48%. The company also says agents are heavier CLI users overall, running nearly twice as many distinct commands per day and being almost four times as likely to use six or more commands.
That growth exposed a structural problem: Wrangler was built piecemeal across product teams and only covered about 280 command paths, while Cloudflare’s API spans thousands of operations. According to Cloudflare, that made it difficult to keep terminology and workflows consistent across products, and it limited what agents could do without switching tools.
cf is built around the full Cloudflare API
The new CLI, cf, is intended to solve both the command-coverage gap and the inconsistencies inherited from Wrangler. Cloudflare says it built cf on Forge, its unified API generation pipeline, which generates CLI commands directly from the API schema used for documentation and SDKs.
Because Cloudflare says every product has an OpenAPI schema, the company can use that schema, plus added annotations, as the source for CLI generation. The result is a CLI that expands from Wrangler’s roughly 280 functions to the full Cloudflare API surface of more than 3,000 operations.
Cloudflare says this means an agent can use one tool to set up a Worker, deploy it, monitor it, secure it with Cloudflare Access, buy a domain, and place it behind Cloudflare WAF.
Agent-first design choices
Cloudflare is positioning cf as a tool for “the next generation of software development,” and several of its design decisions reflect that. The company says cf includes new tools for command discovery that are intended to help agents identify the right operation without bloating context.
One of those tools is cf cli search, which lets an agent use natural language to look up the command it needs. Cloudflare says the search index returns commands based on API descriptions and parameters, and that agents are told about the feature the first time they run --help.
Cloudflare also says cf is designed to work better with agent-specific context files and prompts, including AGENTS.md files, making a new tool easier for an agent to learn than a redesigned version of a familiar one.
JSON becomes the default
Another major change is output format. Cloudflare says agents often append --json to Wrangler commands and then filter the results with tools like jq, but many Wrangler commands still output tables meant for humans. In cf, JSON is the default.
The company says this should reduce time and token usage for agents, since they can filter structured output more easily. Human-readable formatting is still available, but the default is now optimized for machine consumption rather than terminal tables.
cloudflare.config.ts and typed configuration
Alongside the new CLI, Cloudflare is introducing cloudflare.config.ts, a TypeScript-based configuration format that starts with Workers and is meant to extend across Cloudflare over time. The company says typed configuration helps both humans and agents because it is easier to parse, type-check, and edit programmatically.
Cloudflare contrasts the new approach with older Wrangler configuration styles, saying TOML lacked an accessible schema and JSONC was less useful to agents even when a schema was available. It also says some internal Wrangler configuration files were reduced by 40%, from more than 5,000 lines, by moving to a factory-style configuration model.
The new format supports a programmatic setup for environments, and Cloudflare says a simple Worker can switch configuration based on mode. The company also introduces helper functions such as bindings and triggers to make platform features easier to declare and discover.
Bindings and triggers
Cloudflare says bindings can cover items such as environment variables, secrets, KV, D1, R2, queues, AI, Vectorize, and service bindings, with editor autocomplete and explanations available through the new configuration format. Triggers are also grouped into a single block, letting developers define routes, schedules, queues, and email triggers together rather than scattering them through the file.
The company says the broader goal is to make cloud infrastructure more typesafe and more legible to both developers and agents.
Vite becomes the default path
Cloudflare is also shifting its local development story. The company says cf is built on Vite by default, replacing Wrangler’s older esbuild-centric approach for many workflows. Cloudflare points to Vite’s ecosystem, hot module replacement, and support for the Rust-based Rolldown tree-shaking library as reasons for the change.
Cloudflare recommends the Cloudflare Vite Plugin for Workers development, along with its Vitest plugin for testing. The company says this should provide a development and testing environment that more closely matches the Workers runtime while giving direct access to bindings and platform APIs.
Wrangler is not disappearing immediately. Cloudflare says cf will continue to delegate dev and deployment to Wrangler for JavaScript Workers that still need esbuild, as well as for Rust and Python Workers. Workers already built with Vite can be migrated to cloudflare.config.ts, while older projects can keep using Wrangler where needed.
Migrating from Wrangler
Cloudflare says migration is intended to be straightforward. Developers can run cf migrate to move a Worker from Wrangler, and new projects can be bootstrapped with cf init. Static sites still do not require a configuration file to get started, and deployment can be done with cf deploy.
The company says that when the open beta ends, it will release a final major version of Wrangler that points users and agents to cf. It also says Wrangler will remain under maintenance support for 18 months after the beta ends.
Cloudflare says cf is open source, available globally with npm i -g cf, and intended to become the primary interface for managing Cloudflare as a whole. The company’s pitch is clear: if agents are becoming a major part of software operations, the CLI should be built around them from the start.
Source: Original report
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Last Modified: September 28, 2026 at 10:34 pm
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