How to get started with bitcoin-cli on macOS?

Question

I've been having a really hard time struggling through installation. The problem is there seem to be two ways to install, one through a download link and one through src. However, both methods still have many problems and the dependencies are unclear. I explained the specifics of the problem on GitHub.

I was hoping that I would be able to download bitcoin from GitHub, enter the src file, and run ./bitcoind or ./bitcoin-qt -server to be able to run in prune mode. However, I am still getting errors. For example,

IN:

./bitcoin-qt -server

OUT:

zsh: killed     ./bitcoin-qt -server

I am not able to download the whole blockchain at 500 GB, but I need to use the bitcoin-cli. My thought was running ./bitcoin-qt -server would allow me to prune the download as explained on StackExchange and operate bitcoin-cli, without having to run bitcoind first.

Questions

1. Is running bitcoind necessary to run bitcoin-cli?
2. Is it possible to run bitcoin-cli without downloading the entire blockchain?
3. What is the cleanest path to getting started with bitcoin-cli on macOS?

Answer 1

Is running bitcoind necessary to run bitcoin-cli?

No, you can use bitcoin-cli with bitcoin-qt but you must first tell bitcoin-qt to listen for requests from blitcoin-cli - it does not do this by default.

$ ./bitcoin-qt -server &

See https://livebook.manning.com/book/grokking-bitcoin/a-using-bitcoin-cli/v-6/34

---

zsh: killed     ./bitcoin-qt -server

You probably need to reinstall homebrew.

See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66119081/why-does-zsh-kills-my-process-every-time-i-enter-a-git-command