Ads and Commerce

Configuration

Updated: Apr 29, 2026
This guide covers how Ads CLI resolves configuration settings, including environment variables, .env files, and the config directory.

Environment variables

VariableRequiredDescription
ACCESS_TOKEN
Yes
System user access token that you generate in the Meta Business Suite
AD_ACCOUNT_ID
Yes (for most commands)
Your Meta ad account ID
BUSINESS_ID
No
Default business ID (for catalog/dataset commands)

Configuration precedence

Ads CLI resolves settings in this order (highest priority first):
  1. Command-line flags (for example, --ad-account-id)
  2. Environment variables
  3. Project-level .env file
  4. User-level config (~/.config/meta/)

Use a .env file

To prevent setting the environment variables for each session, you can add a .env file in the directory where you are running Ads CLI:
cat > .env << 'DOTENV'
ACCESS_TOKEN='<ACCESS_TOKEN>'
AD_ACCOUNT_ID='<AD_ACCOUNT_ID>'
BUSINESS_ID='<BUSINESS_ID>'
DOTENV
Note: Environment variables set in your shell take precedence over .env values.

Config directory

Ads CLI stores configuration in an XDG-compliant⁠ directory:
~/.config/meta/
You can override the base directory by setting the XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable.

See also