The Chaos Toolkit CLI, called chaos, is a Python program that is executed in your terminal. It exposes various built-in commands performing different tasks.

The Chaos Toolkit expects Python 3 to run. Let's make sure you run at least Python 3.5:

python3 -V

Usually, the python binary refers to Python 2 so make sure you use python3 in your commands.

As a Python program, it is best install it in its own virtual environment. Let's create it as follows:

mkdir ~/.venvs && python3 -m venv ~/.venvs/chaostk

Once the virtual environment installed, you need to activate it in your current terminal session:

source ~/.venvs/chaostk/bin/activate

We're going to use pip to manage the dependencies and install the Chaos Toolkit. Let's first make sure we have the latest and greatest pip installed:

pip install -U pip

Then we can install the Chaos Toolkit itself by running the following:

pip install -U chaostoolkit

Note that pip may complain while installing some dependencies, these warnings are nothing to worry about and will not prevent those dependencies from being installed.

Now, the chaos comand should be available:

chaos --help

Next, you need to learn how to install extensions to provide new probes and actions to your Chaos Toolkit environment.