IBM® CICS® Plug-in for Zowe CLI

The IBM® CICS® Plug-in for Zowe™ CLI lets you extend Zowe CLI to interact with CICS programs and transactions. The plug-in uses the IBM CICS® Management Client Interface (CMCI) API to achieve the interaction with CICS. For more information, see CICS management client interface on the IBM Knowledge Center.

Use cases

As an application developer, you can use the plug-in to perform the following tasks:

• Deploy code changes to CICS applications that were developed with COBOL.
• Deploy changes to CICS regions for testing or delivery. See the define command for an example of how you can define programs to CICS to assist with testing and delivery.
• Automate CICS interaction steps in your CI/CD pipeline with Jenkins Automation Server or TravisCI.
• Deploy build artifacts to CICS regions.
• Alter, copy, define, delete, discard, and install CICS resources and resource definitions.

Commands

For detailed documentation on commands, actions, and options available in this plug-in, see our web help.

There are several methods to view Zowe CLI web help:

• Use a web browser
• Extract from a ZIP file
• Download a PDF file

Software requirements

Before you install the plug-in, meet the software requirements in Software requirements for Zowe CLI plug-ins.

Installing

Use one of the following methods to install or update the plug-in:

• Installing plug-ins from an online registry

• Installing plug-ins from a local package

Creating a user profile

After you install the plug-in, create a CICS profile to avoid entering your connection details each time that you issue a command. You can create multiple profiles and switch between them as needed.

Specify your plug-in profile and connection details in the zowe.config.json configuration file.

Creating plug-in profiles using a configuration file

If you have the CICS plug-in installed and issue the zowe config init, zowe config auto-init, or zowe config convert-profiles command, the command creates an entry for a CICS profile in your zowe.config.json file.

Alternatively, you can create a CICS profile manually by adding a section that contains the configuration details to your zowe.config.json configuration file.

Creating a CICS profile with a command

1. Install the CICS Plug-in for Zowe CLI.

2. Create a CICS profile:

   zowe config init

3. Set the port number to the port configured for a CICS connection on your mainframe.

   zowe config set profiles.cics.properties.port <port number>

   • <port number>

     Specifies the port number for the instance.

   You can now use your profile when you issue commands in the cics command group.

Creating a CICS profile manually

1. Install the CICS Plug-in for Zowe CLI.

2. Browse to the directory C:\Users\<username>\.zowe.

3. Open the zowe.config.json configuration file using a text editor or IDE, such as Visual Studio Code or IntelliJ.

   note

   If the file does not exist, issue the following command to create the configuration file:

   zowe config init --gc

4. Add code to the "profiles" section as shown in the following example:

   "Your_cics_profile": {
     "type": "cics",
     "properties": {
         "host": "Your_host_name",
         "port": Your_port_number,
         "regionName": “Your_CICS_region”
     },
     "secure": [
       "user",
       "password"
     ]
   }

5. Save the file.

   You can now use your profile when you issue commands in the zftp command group.