cli-developer
Build cross-platform CLI tools with argument parsing, interactive prompts, and shell completions.
- Covers Node.js (commander, yargs), Python (click, typer), and Go (cobra, viper) frameworks with design patterns for subcommands, flags, and configuration
- Includes UX patterns for progress bars, spinners, color output with TTY detection, and graceful signal handling
- Requires startup time under 50ms, consistent flag naming, non-interactive fallbacks for CI/CD, and shell completion generation
- Enforces cross-platform testing (Windows, macOS, Linux) and proper stderr/stdout separation for piped output
CLI Developer
Core Workflow
- Analyze UX — Identify user workflows, command hierarchy, common tasks. Validate by listing all commands and their expected
--helpoutput before writing code. - Design commands — Plan subcommands, flags, arguments, configuration. Confirm flag naming is consistent and no existing signatures are broken.
- Implement — Build with the appropriate CLI framework for the language (see Reference Guide below). After wiring up commands, run
<cli> --helpto verify help text renders correctly and<cli> --versionto confirm version output. - Polish — Add completions, help text, error messages, progress indicators. Verify TTY detection for color output and graceful SIGINT handling.
- Test — Run cross-platform smoke tests; benchmark startup time (target: <50ms).
Reference Guide
Load detailed guidance based on context:
| Topic | Reference | Load When |
|---|---|---|
| Design Patterns | references/design-patterns.md |
Subcommands, flags, config, architecture |
| Node.js CLIs | references/node-cli.md |
commander, yargs, inquirer, chalk |
| Python CLIs | references/python-cli.md |
click, typer, argparse, rich |
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