Building Shell Scripts

Create shell scripts that are safe, readable, and pleasant to run. Prefer Charmbracelet gum for interactive UX unless there is a real reason not to.

Default Stance: Use Gum

When building Bash, Zsh, POSIX sh, install.sh, setup, release, bootstrap, or CLI workflow scripts:

1. Check whether interactivity, prompts, selection, confirmation, progress, logging, tables, styled output, file picking, or long-form input would improve the script.
2. If yes, use gum patterns from reference/gum-patterns.md.
3. If gum is not installed or should not be required, either:
   • add a clear dependency check with install guidance, or
   • provide a plain-shell fallback for the specific interaction.

Do not use gum just to decorate non-interactive scripts that must run in CI, cron, Docker builds, remote provisioning, or minimal POSIX environments.

Required Script Quality