The InVEST CLI

Installing

The invest cli application is installed with the natcap.invest python package. See Installing InVEST

It is also available to Windows users who installed InVEST with the downloadable installer. Just replace invest in the commands below with the full path to invest.exe (e.g. C:\InVEST_3.8.0_x86\invest-3-x86\invest.exe)

Usage

To run an InVEST model from the command-line, use the invest cli single entry point:

$ invest --help
usage: invest [-h] [--version] [-v | --debug]
          {list,launch,run,quickrun,validate,getspec} ...

Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs. InVEST (Integrated
Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) is a family of tools for
quantifying the values of natural capital in clear, credible, and practical
ways. In promising a return (of societal benefits) on investments in nature,
the scientific community needs to deliver knowledge and tools to quantify and
forecast this return. InVEST enables decision-makers to quantify the
importance of natural capital, to assess the tradeoffs associated with
alternative choices, and to integrate conservation and human development.
Older versions of InVEST ran as script tools in the ArcGIS ArcToolBox
environment, but have almost all been ported over to a purely open-source
python environment.

positional arguments:
  {list,launch,run,quickrun,validate,getspec}
    list                List the available InVEST models
    launch              Start the InVEST launcher window
    run                 Run an InVEST model
    quickrun            Run through a model with a specific datastack, exiting
                        immediately upon completion. This subcommand is only
                        intended to be used by automated testing scripts.
    validate            Validate the parameters of a datastack
    getspec             Get the specification of a model.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  -v, --verbose         Increase verbosity. Affects how much logging is
                        printed to the console and (if running in headless
                        mode) how much is written to the logfile.
  --debug               Enable debug logging. Alias for -vvvvv

To list the available models:

$ invest list

To launch a model’s user-interface:

$ invest run carbon

To run a model directly from the command-line:

$ invest -vvv run <modelname> --headless -d <datastack json file> -w <output_workspace>

For more detailed instructions, get the help for each command:

$ invest run --help