Get Started on the Command Line

The robotcode command works with your Robot Framework project in the terminal, in CI pipelines and in scripts: it runs the tests, lists what a run would pick up, checks the code and shows the results of a run. It reads the same robot.toml as RobotCode in VS Code and PyCharm. This page installs it into your project and runs a first test with it. Editors other than VS Code and PyCharm use RobotCode's language server; see Neovim.

Choosing the packages

RobotCode comes as the package robotcode with extras, one for each group of commands. Install the extras for the commands you need:

Package	Commands	For
robotcode	config, profiles	Showing the configuration and the profiles of the project; every extra includes it
robotcode[runner]	robot (or run), rebot, libdoc, testdoc, discover, results	Running tests, listing them and reading the results of a run, for example in a CI pipeline
robotcode[analyze]	analyze	Checking the code for problems
robotcode[repl]	repl, robot-debug, doc, and the commands of runner	Trying keywords, debugging in the terminal and reading the documentation of libraries
robotcode[debugger]	debug, and the commands of runner	Debugging from a client of the Debug Adapter Protocol, such as an editor
robotcode[languageserver]	language-server, and analyze	Editors that connect to RobotCode's language server
robotcode[all]	All of them, with Robocop and the optional packages PyYAML and docutils	Everything

The VS Code extension and the PyCharm plugin bring their own copy of these packages; you install them for the command line, for CI pipelines and for other editors.

Installing RobotCode

Install the packages into the Python environment of your project, the one with Robot Framework and your libraries: the commands run Robot Framework from that environment. RobotCode needs Python 3.10 or newer with Robot Framework 5.0 or newer.

With pip, in the activated environment:

pip install "robotcode[runner]"

With uv, add it to a project that uv manages, or install it into an environment with uv's pip interface:

uv add "robotcode[runner]"          # in a project that uv manages
uv pip install "robotcode[runner]"  # in an environment

To install several extras, separate them with commas, for example "robotcode[runner,analyze]". In a project that uv manages, uv run runs a command in the project's environment, for example uv run robotcode --version.

Check the installation:

robotcode --version

It prints the installed version, for example robotcode, version 2.8.0. robotcode --help lists the commands of the installed packages.

Listing your tests

Create a folder tests in your project with a file first.robot:

tests/first.robot

*** Test Cases ***
First Test Case
    Log    Hello world

robotcode discover all lists the suites and tests that Robot Framework would run, without running them:

robotcode discover all tests

# All

- **Tests** (`tests`)
  - **Tests.First** (`tests/first.robot`)
    - **Tests.First.First Test Case** (`tests/first.robot:2`)

## Statistics

- _Suites:_ 2
- _Suites with tests:_ 1
- _Tests:_ 1

Running your first test

robotcode run tests

robotcode run is short for robotcode robot. It runs Robot Framework with the configuration of your project; the options of Robot Framework go after run, as they would after robot. Robot Framework writes output.xml, log.html and report.html to the folder results, the output folder that RobotCode's user configuration sets by default for projects without one of their own.

robotcode results reads the results of the last run without running the tests again:

robotcode results summary

# Summary — results/output.xml

- _Status:_ ✅ **PASS**
- _Total:_ 1
- _Passed:_ 1
- _Failed:_ 0
- _Skipped:_ 0
- _Started:_ 2026-10-27 18:42:29
- _Ended:_ 2026-10-27 18:42:29
- _Elapsed:_ 12 ms

robotcode results show lists the tests of the run, with the failure message of each test that failed.

Next steps

• A robot.toml with the paths of your tests lets you leave out tests in these commands; see Configure Your Project.
• Working on the Command Line shows which command answers which task, with a guide for each.
• The CLI reference lists every command and option.