servicenow-cli

A TypeScript/Bun CLI for ServiceNow — AI-friendly, comprehensive API coverage, supports any hosted instance.

Features

• Full Table API (query, get, create, update, delete)
• Incident & Change management with human-readable output
• Aggregate API for reporting
• Attachment management
• CMDB queries
• Import Set API
• Three auth modes: Basic, API key, or Cookie/token (for SSO instances)
• --json flag for clean stdout output (ideal for AI agents)
• --dry-run flag for safe previewing of writes
• Config stored in ~/.config/servicenow-cli/config.json

Install

git clone https://github.com/onmyway133/servicenow-cli
cd servicenow-cli
bun install
bun link  # makes `sn` available globally

Quick Start

# Interactive setup
sn config init

# List open incidents
sn incident list --limit 10

# Get a specific incident
sn incident get INC0010001

# Output JSON (for AI/scripting)
sn incident list --json

Auth Modes

Cookie mode (for SSO/hosted instances without API tokens)

Some ServiceNow instances use SSO (ADFS, SAML, etc.) and don't expose API keys. In this case, grab your session cookie from Chrome DevTools:

1. Open Chrome → your ServiceNow instance → DevTools → Application → Cookies
2. Copy the full cookie string (all cookies for the domain)
3. Set it:

sn config init
# Choose: cookie
# Paste the cookie string when prompted

Or pass it inline:

sn incident list \
  --instance https://yourcompany.service-now.com \
  --cookie "glide_user=abc; glide_session_store=xyz; ..." \
  --json

The CLI auto-fetches X-UserToken from the response headers — no manual token needed.

API key mode

sn config init
# Choose: apikey
# Enter your x-sn-apikey

Or inline:

sn incident list --instance https://dev12345.service-now.com --api-key your-key-here

Basic auth

sn config init
# Choose: basic
# Enter username + password

Environment variables

All auth can be provided via env:

export SN_INSTANCE=https://yourinstance.service-now.com
export SN_COOKIE="glide_user=..."   # cookie mode
export SN_API_KEY=your-key          # apikey mode
export SN_USERNAME=admin            # basic mode
export SN_PASSWORD=pass

Commands

incident

sn incident list
sn incident list --state 1          # 1=New, 2=In Progress, 6=Resolved, 7=Closed
sn incident list --group "PM Payments" --limit 50
sn incident list --query "priority=1^state=1" --json

sn incident get INC0010001
sn incident update INC0010001 --group "New Team" --note "Routing reason"
sn incident update INC0010001 --group "New Team" --dry-run  # preview only

change

sn change list
sn change list --state scheduled --type normal
sn change get CHG0010001

table (generic Table API)

sn table query sys_user --query "active=true" --fields "name,email,user_name"
sn table get incident <sys_id>
sn table create incident --data '{"short_description":"Test","category":"software"}'
sn table update incident <sys_id> --data '{"state":"2"}'
sn table delete incident <sys_id> --dry-run

aggregate

sn aggregate incident --group-by assignment_group
sn aggregate incident --query "active=true" --group-by priority --json

attachment

sn attachment list incident <incident_sys_id>
sn attachment get <attachment_sys_id>
sn attachment delete <attachment_sys_id>

cmdb

sn cmdb list
sn cmdb list --class cmdb_ci_server --query "operational_status=1" --limit 50
sn cmdb get <sys_id> --class cmdb_ci_server

import

sn import create u_my_staging_table --data '{"u_field":"value"}'

config

sn config init          # interactive setup
sn config show          # view config (secrets masked)
sn config set instance https://newinstance.service-now.com
sn config set auth.cookie "new-cookie-string"

AI Usage

This CLI is designed to be called by AI agents. Key patterns:

• Use --json for structured output (clean stdout, no decorations)
• Use --dry-run before any write operations
• All errors go to stderr, data to stdout
• Exit codes: 0 = success, 1 = error

Example AI workflow:

# List incidents as JSON for the AI to parse
sn incident list --group "PM Payments" --limit 20 --json

# Get full incident detail
sn incident get INC0010001 --json

# Propose a reassignment (dry-run first)
sn incident update INC0010001 --group "T&S CCS I&I Identity Authentication" \
  --note "Login failure — routing to identity team" --dry-run

Development

bun test           # run tests
bun run src/index.ts --help  # dev run

License

MIT License — Copyright © 2026 Khoa Pham