ClickHouse Install & Auth

Overview

Set up the official ClickHouse client for Node.js or Python and configure authentication to ClickHouse Cloud or a self-hosted instance. The workflow below is the high-level path; each step links to a full walkthrough with complete code in references/implementation.md.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ or Python 3.8+
• A running ClickHouse instance (Cloud or self-hosted)
• Connection credentials (host, port, user, password)

Instructions

Follow these five steps. Read the current project for an existing .env before writing one; write credentials to .env (never commit it).

1. Install the official client. Node.js uses the HTTP-based @clickhouse/client; Python uses clickhouse-connect.

   npm install @clickhouse/client   # Node.js
   pip install clickhouse-connect   # Python
   

2. Configure environment variables. Put host, user, and password in .env and add it to .gitignore. Cloud hosts use port 8443 (HTTPS); self-hosted uses 8123 (HTTP).

3. Create the client. Pass url, username, and password to createClient() (Node.js) or get_client() (Python). Cloud requires TLS — supply an https:// URL and the client handles it.

   import { createClient } from '@clickhouse/client';
   const client = createClient({
     url: process.env.CLICKHOUSE_HOST,
     username: process.env.CLICKHOUSE_USER,
     password: process.env.CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD,
   });
   

4. Verify the connection with client.ping() plus a probe.