Etherscan CLI Configuration

@spectratools/etherscan-cli uses the Etherscan V2 API and requires an API key.

ETHERSCAN_API_KEY (required)

Variable	Required	Description
ETHERSCAN_API_KEY	Yes	Etherscan V2 API key used by every command

export ETHERSCAN_API_KEY="your-etherscan-api-key"

How to get an API key

1. Sign in or create an account at etherscan.io
2. Open etherscan.io/myapikey
3. Create an API key
4. Store it in your shell profile or CI secret manager

Chain selection (--chain)

All commands accept --chain:

etherscan-cli account balance 0xd8dA6BF26964aF9D7eEd9e03E53415D37aA96045 --chain ethereum

Default chain is Abstract:

etherscan-cli gas oracle
# same as: etherscan-cli gas oracle --chain abstract

Supported chains

• abstract (default)
• ethereum (alias: mainnet)
• base
• arbitrum
• optimism
• polygon
• avalanche
• bsc
• linea
• scroll
• zksync
• mantle
• blast
• mode
• sepolia
• goerli

Output formats

Use --format on any command:

--format <toon|json|yaml|md|jsonl>

Format	Best for
toon	Human-readable terminal output (default)
json	Scripts and AI agent workflows
yaml	Human-readable structured output
md	Markdown reports and notes
jsonl	Streaming and line-oriented processing

Examples:

# Structured machine output
etherscan-cli tx status 0x1234...abcd --chain ethereum --format json

# Full envelope + metadata
etherscan-cli tx status 0x1234...abcd --chain ethereum --format json --verbose