command-line-application

A helpful wrapper around command-line-args and command-line-usage.

• Easily define single or multi-command CLI application
• Adds required options
• Suggests possible fixes for typos in flags or sub-commands
• Built in --help flag
• Add documentation footers to commands
• Automatically add color to command types
• Type checked!

Related Libraries

• command-line-docs - Generate documentation for your command-line-application commands

Installation

yarn add command-line-application
# or
npm i --save command-line-application

Usage

A simple single command app

import { app, Command } from 'command-line-application';

const echo: Command = {
  name: 'echo',
  description: 'Print a string to the terminal',
  examples: ['echo foo', 'echo "Intense message"'],
  require: ['value'],
  options: [
    {
      name: 'value',
      type: String,
      defaultOption: true,
      description: 'The value to print'
    }
  ]
};

const args = app(echo);

// $ echo foo
console.log(args);
// output: { value: "foo" }

Complex examples

import app, { Command } from 'command-line-application';

const echo: Command = {
  examples: [{ example: 'echo foo', desc: 'The default use case' }],
  ...
};

Multi Command

You can even nest multi-commands!

import app, { Command } from 'command-line-application';

const test: Command = { ... };
const lint: Command = { ... };
const scripts: MultiCommand = {
  name: 'scripts',
  descriptions: 'my tools',
  commands: [test, lint]
};

const args = app(scripts);

// $ scripts test --fix
console.log(args);
// output: { _command: 'test', fix: true }

Footers

Add additional docs to your commands with Footers.

const echo: Command = {
  name: 'echo',
  description: 'Print a string to the terminal',
  examples: ['echo foo', 'echo "Intense message"'],
  options: [
    {
      name: 'value',
      type: String,
      defaultOption: true,
      description: 'The value to print'
    }
  ],
  footer: 'Only run this if you really need to',
  // or
  footer: {
    header: 'Additional Info',
    content: 'Only run this if you really need to'
  },
  // or
  footer: [
    {
      header: 'Additional Info',
      content: 'Only run this if you really need to'
    }
  ]
};

Code in footers

To display code in a footer set code to true.

const echo: Command = {
  name: 'echo',
  description: 'Print a string to the terminal',
  examples: ['echo foo', 'echo "Intense message"'],
  options: [
    {
      name: 'value',
      type: String,
      defaultOption: true,
      description: 'The value to print'
    }
  ],
  footer: {
    header: 'Additional Info',
    code: true,
    content: 'function foo (){\n  return 1;\n}'
  }
};

Require One or Another

To require on of multiple flags simply make on of the items in the required array an array of n options.

const echo: Command = {
  name: 'one-or-another',
  description: "Errors if one of the flags isn't provided",
  examples: ['one-or-another --a', 'one-or-another --b'],
  required: [['a', 'b']],
  options: [
    {
      name: 'a',
      type: Boolean,
      description: 'One options'
    },
    {
      name: 'b',
      type: Boolean,
      description: 'another option'
    }
  ]
};

Options

argv

Provide argv manually.

const args = app(echo, { argv: ['--help'] });

showHelp

Whether to show the help dialog. Defaults to true

const args = app(echo, { showHelp: false });

camelCase

Whether to camelCase the parsed options. Defaults to true

const args = app(echo, { camelCase: false });

error

Configure how command-line-application reports errors.

• exit - (default) print error message and exit process
• throw - throw error message
• object - return the error message on an object with key error