invocation per OS

darktable and the other binaries (e.g. darktable-cltest) can be executed from the console as follows:

Linux

• Installed as package or snap: darktable
• Flatpak: flatpak run org.darktable.Darktable
  • To run e.g. darktable-cltest: flatpak run --command=darktable-cltest org.darktable.Darktable --arguments-go-here.
• AppImage: Navigate to containing folder, then ./darktable.Appimage (or however you named the file)
  • To run e.g. darktable-cltest: ./darktable.Appimage darktable-cltest
  • An additional option to run the various binaries included in darktable (e.g. darktable-cltest or darktable-cli) is through a symbolic link:
    • Create a symbolic link to your AppImage and call it e.g. darktable-cli.
    • Then, when calling the AppImage through the symbolic link with ./darktable-cli, the code inside the package checks if there is a binary file inside the AppImage with a name that matches the symlink name. If so, it will be run instead of the default one..

Windows

• Navigate to darktable’s program folder: cd "\Program Files\darktable\bin" then execute .\darktable.exe.
• The other binaries e.g. darktable-cltest.exe are also located in this folder and can be called accordingly.

macOS

• Execute /Applications/darktable.app/Contents/MacOS/darktable.
• The other binaries e.g. darktable-cltest are also located in this folder and can be called accordingly.

Command line options are in any case simply appended. (e.g. -d common).