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The Iris CLI is designed for non-interactive pipelines — install it, pass your licence as an environment variable, and use iris gate as your quality gate step. No browser, no interactive login, no persistent state on the runner.

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Exit codes

Use exit codes to control pipeline behaviour. iris gate follows the same conventions as all other Iris commands:
Exit codeMeaningPipeline action
0All files pass the thresholdPipeline continues
1One or more files below thresholdFail the build
2Bad arguments or invalid configFix the workflow step

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Setting IRIS_LICENCE_TOKEN

Add your licence key as a secret in your CI provider settings, then expose it as the IRIS_LICENCE_TOKEN environment variable in the step that runs Iris. The CLI checks this variable before reading the credentials file, so no iris auth login step is needed on runners.
iris secrets runs without any authentication at all. Use it for a free CI scan that requires no licence — it works on any runner regardless of IRIS_LICENCE_TOKEN.

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GitHub Actions

The example below shows a minimal iris gate step. For the full workflow including branch protection rules and threshold configuration, see the GitHub Actions guide. 
name: Iris health check
on: [push, pull_request]

jobs:
  iris:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v5
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v5
        with:
          node-version: 20
      - run: npm install -g @iris-code/cli
      - name: Gate check
        run: iris gate
        env:
          IRIS_LICENCE_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.IRIS_LICENCE_TOKEN }}
For inline PR annotations, use iris gate . --format github (added in v1.6.0). See the full guide at /enforcement/github-actions.
To add a free secrets scan that needs no licence, include this step independently: 
      - name: Secrets scan (free, no licence)
        run: |
          npm install -g @iris-code/cli
          iris secrets

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GitLab CI

iris-gate:
  stage: test
  image: node:20
  script:
    - npm install -g @iris-code/cli
    - iris gate
  variables:
    IRIS_LICENCE_TOKEN: $IRIS_LICENCE_TOKEN

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Generic shell

For any CI environment that runs arbitrary shell scripts: 
#!/bin/sh
set -e
npm install -g @iris-code/cli
iris gate --threshold 80
Pair iris gate (Pro) with iris secrets (free) for layered coverage — gate blocks low-quality code, secrets scan catches leaked credentials on every push regardless of licence status.