1. The Problem

Before redisctl: How did we manage Redis deployments?

Redis Cloud

What Exists:

• Web UI - Point and click (not scriptable)
• Terraform Provider - Good for IaC, not ad-hoc operations
• REST API - Documented but no tooling around it

The Gap:

• No CLI for day-to-day operations
• No way to script common tasks
• Must use UI or write custom bash scripts

Redis Enterprise

What Exists:

• rladmin - Powerful but limited
  • Must SSH to cluster nodes
  • Text output (hard to parse)
  • Not cross-platform (Linux only on nodes)
  • Single cluster at a time
• REST API - Large (~100+ endpoints), poorly documented
  • Manual JSON construction
  • No official tooling

The Gap:

• No remote management CLI
• No automation-friendly tools
• No multi-cluster support

The Reality

What everyone actually does:

# The "best practice" before redisctl
curl -X POST https://api.redislabs.com/v1/subscriptions \
  -H "x-api-key: $KEY" \
  -H "x-api-secret-key: $SECRET" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name":"prod","cloudProviders":[...]}'

# Then poll for completion
while true; do
  STATUS=$(curl -s https://api.redislabs.com/v1/tasks/$TASK_ID | jq -r '.status')
  if [ "$STATUS" = "completed" ]; then break; fi
  sleep 2
done

Problems

1. No type safety - Typos cause runtime failures
2. Manual JSON - Error-prone, hard to maintain
3. Polling loops - Fragile, need manual error handling
4. Credential exposure - API keys in shell history
5. Not portable - Requires bash, curl, jq
6. No progress feedback - Silent failures

The Core Problem

Redis had ZERO command-line tools for Cloud or Enterprise management

Next: 2. Enter redisctl