CF Targets Plugin

This plugin facilitates the use of multiple api targets with the Cloud Foundry CLI.

It originated from the need for a Go play project, and the realization that I was
frequently switching back and forth between development and various test environments,
using tricks like

CF_HOME=~/cf-development cf push my-app
CF_HOME=~/cf-production cf push my-app

This plugin makes switching a lot less painful by allowing you to save your currently
configured target using a name, then switching back to it by name at any point.

Usage

Configure and save any number of named targets

$ cf api <development-target-url>
$ cf login
...
$ cf save-target development

Followed by

$ cf api <production-target-url>
$ cf login
...
$ cf save-target production

After saving targets, easily switch back and forth between them using:

$ cf set-target development
$ cf target
API Endpoint:   <development-target-url>
...
$ cf set-target production
$ cf target
API Endpoint:   <production-target-url>
...

View saved targets using

$ cf targets
development
production (current)

When there are changes that have not been saved, a unified diff of the changes will be shown. For sensitive data, a
sha256 checksum is displayed instead. The sha checksum makes it easier for reading the actual changes.

$ cf set-target test
Your current target has not been saved. Use save-target first, or use -f to discard your changes.
--- Current
+++ Target
@@ -3 +3 @@
- "AccessToken": "REDACTED sha256(9b421f0de41ed363fdfe936fcb915fd01be6938fd37302a632d5405e1e47f9c1)",
+ "AccessToken": "REDACTED sha256(9feb3a0a506c808b6e016436fc8e07fb3f393b5014799f40172bf430c4a4e679)",
@@ -6 +6 @@
- "ColorEnabled": "0",
+ "ColorEnabled": "1",
@@ -23 +23 @@
- "RefreshToken": "REDACTED sha256(957ad5c277daf6afcec1d0de6a2f051c645ed69c0e7693b51503b3b6e0e97ac6)",
+ "RefreshToken": "REDACTED sha256(c3b764a22604e32b77b7148df69b2c5b0ed2f3402d29d6da5c97eb60b623420b)",
@@ -28 +28 @@
-  "AllowSSH": false,
+  "AllowSSH": true,

Installation

Install from CLI

$ cf add-plugin-repo CF-Community https://plugins.cloudfoundry.org/
$ cf install-plugin Targets -r CF-Community

Install from Source (need to have Go installed)

$ git clone ...
$ cd cf-targets-plugin
#
$ make build
$ cf install-plugin cf-targets-plugin
or
$ make install

GitHub CLI setup

This repo is a fork. The gh CLI defaults to the parent repo, which causes
workflows and releases to target the wrong repository. After cloning, set
the default:

$ gh repo set-default cloudfoundry-community/cf-targets-plugin

Full Command List

command	usage	description
`targets`	`cf targets`	list all saved targets
`save-target`	`cf save-target [-f] [<name>]`	save the current target for later use
`set-target`	`cf set-target [-f] <name>`	restore a previously saved target
`delete-target`	`cf delete-target <name>`	delete a previously saved target
`switch-target`	`cf switch-target [-f] [--save-as NAME] <name>`	save current target and switch to another

Vendored Diff Code

The unified diff display is powered by a local copy of Go's internal diff
package, vendored from golang.org/x/tools/internal/diff
(currently synced to v0.42.0). The code lives in internal/diff/ and is
licensed under the Go Authors' BSD license.

Upstream references:

This code is vendored because the upstream package uses Go's internal/
convention, which prevents direct import by external modules.

Why not a third-party package?

Package	Status	Notes
hexops/gotextdiff	Archived (Feb 2024)	Was the most commonly recommended Go diff library. Itself a re-export of the same `x/tools/internal/diff` code.
aymanbagabas/go-udiff	Active	Also derived from `x/tools/internal/diff`. Viable but adds an external dependency for code we already vendor.
sourcegraph/go-diff	Active	Parses/formats unified diffs but does not compute diffs — different use case.

Since the most recommended package (gotextdiff) was archived and was itself
a re-export of the same upstream code, maintaining a local vendored copy
remains the most appropriate approach.

Checking for upstream updates

Run the automated sync check:

make check-diff-upstream

This compares the sync tag in internal/diff/SYNC_VERSION against upstream
HEAD and reports whether any tracked files have changed. See CLAUDE.md
for manual fallback steps.

Extended Build Metadata

The extended build metadata is available by executing the plugin itself.

./cf-targets-plugin

Release Engineering Information

GMake targets for pipelining

Generate release artifacts in the releases directory. Sha256 checksum files are
created for each artifact as well. The file repo-index.yaml file is created for
when we are ready to submit to the cf-plugins-repo. The GOOS and GOARCH variables are
are included by default onto the build metadata string.

gmake ci-release VERSION=<major.minor,patch> [SEMVER_PRERELEASE=<prerelease-metadata>] [SEMVER_BUILDMETA=<buid-metadata>]

Cleans up after the artifacts are copied

gmake release-clean

GMake targets for manual release engineering

You can use the pipelining targets, but for manual release engineering testing the following
additional targets can be used for release build testing.

Same as ci-release but the version information defaults to the latest tag. The patch
version is incremented to avoid version confusion for actual releases and the prerelease is set to dev.
The same GMake variables used on ci-release can be used on release-all

gmake release-all

GMake targets for development engineering

In addtion to the release engineering targets, the following targets will build the artifact for your local
environment. The built artifact is located in the repo top directory. The install target will build and install
the plugin into your local cf command. The same GMake variables for release engineering are available for development
engineering.

gmake build
./cf-targets-plugin
cf install-plugin cf-targets-plugin -f

gmake install 
./cf-targets-plugin
cf plugins

Clean up the build or install target generated artifacts

gmake clean

Note: The legacy build-all.sh script has been removed. Its
functionality is now covered by the Makefile:

Development builds: make build

Release builds: make ci-release VERSION=x.y.z

Test Coverage

Package	Coverage
`cf-targets-plugin`	72.6%
`internal/diff`	83.3%
`internal/diff/lcs`	54.3%
Total	68.1%

Last updated: 2026-03-05

norman-abramovitz/cf-targets-plugin