Skip to content
bidsmith

Command reference

bidsmith is a single command-line binary. Every subcommand here is invoked as bidsmith <verb> [flags]. The verbs split into two groups: local commands that don’t touch the API, and commands that read or write Google Ads via the API.

Local (no API)

bidsmith validate Parse .bid files, check syntax, schema, references, lint warnings.
bidsmith fmt Rewrite .bid files in canonical form, in place or as a check.
bidsmith export Render .bid files from a JSON description or a SearchStream dump.
bidsmith schema Dump the resource schema as JSON — drives docs and IDE tooling.
bidsmith design-doc Generate the Google Ads API Basic-Access design document for an applicant.

API (reads or writes Google Ads)

bidsmith plan Preview the diff between .bid files and the live account.
bidsmith apply Apply the diff to Google Ads after a confirmation prompt.
bidsmith refresh Pull live state into .bid files (bootstrap or sync).
bidsmith pull Dump raw Google Ads SearchStream JSON for fixtures and tests.
bidsmith query Run a read-only GAQL query and print the result.

Common conventions

  • Path argument — validate, fmt, plan, apply accept an optional path (file or directory). Defaults to . (the current directory). If a directory, bidsmith walks it recursively for .bid files.
  • --verbose — on API commands, prints the outgoing request and raw response. Useful for debugging.
  • Exit codes — 0 on success, non-zero on any error. Error messages go to stderr; normal output goes to stdout.
  • Help — bidsmith --help lists every verb; bidsmith <verb> --help lists flags for one verb.