Gluegun is a delightful toolkit for building Node-based command-line interfaces (CLIs), with support for:
๐ฏ parameters - command line arguments and options
๐ template - generating files from templates
๐ patching - manipulating file contents
๐พ filesystem - moving files and directories around
โ system - executing other command-line scripts
๐
http - interacting with API servers
๐ prompt - auto-complete prompts
๐ print - printing pretty colors and tables
๐ฉโ
๐ป strings - manipulating strings & template data
In addition, gluegun
supports expanding your CLI's ecosystem with a robust set
of easy-to-write plugins and extensions.
You might want to use Gluegun if:
- You need to build a CLI app
- You want to have powerful tools at your fingertips
- And you don't want to give up flexibility at the same time
If so ... welcome!
Just run the gluegun
CLI like this:
$ npm install -g gluegun@next
$ gluegun new movies
$ cd movies
$ npm install
$ npm link
$ movies help
You should see your new CLI help. Open the folder in your favorite editor and start building your CLI!
Tip: If you want your CLI to be configured to use TypeScript, pass in --typescript
Let's start with what a gluegun
CLI looks like.
// in movie/src/cli.js...
// ready
const { build } = require('gluegun')
// aim
const movieCLI = build('movie')
.src(`${__dirname}/core-plugins`)
.plugins('node_modules', { matching: 'movie-*' })
.help()
.version()
.defaultCommand()
.create()
// fire!
movieCLI.run()
Commands
Commands are simple objects that provide a name, optional aliases, and a function to run.
// in movie/commands/foo.js
module.exports = {
name: 'foo',
alias: 'f',
run: async function(toolbox) {
// gluegun provides all these features and more!
const { system, print, filesystem, strings } = toolbox
// ...and be the CLI you wish to see in the world
const awesome = strings.trim(system.run('whoami'))
const moreAwesome = strings.kebabCase(`${awesome} and a keyboard`)
const contents = `๐จ Warning! ${moreAwesome} coming thru! ๐จ`
const home = process.env['HOME']
filesystem.write(`${home}/realtalk.json`, { contents })
print.info(`${print.checkmark} Citius`)
print.warning(`${print.checkmark} Altius`)
print.success(`${print.checkmark} Fortius`)
}
}
See the toolbox api docs for more details on what you can do.
See the runtime docs for more details on building your own CLI and join us in the #gluegun channel of the Infinite Red Community Slack (community.infinite.red) to get friendly help!
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- Sara Vieira's Fiddly - Create beautiful and simple HTML pages from your Readme.md files - https://fiddly.netlify.com
We've assembled an all star cast of libraries to help you build your CLI.
โญ๏ธ ejs for templating
โญ๏ธ semver for version investigations
โญ๏ธ fs-jetpack for the filesystem
โญ๏ธ yargs-parser, enquirer, colors, ora and cli-table3 for the command line
โญ๏ธ axios & apisauce for web & apis
โญ๏ธ cosmiconfig for flexible configuration
โญ๏ธ cross-spawn for running sub-commands
โญ๏ธ execa for running more sub-commands
โญ๏ธ node-which for finding executables
โญ๏ธ pluralize for manipulating strings
Node.js 7.6+ is required.
Gluegun is sponsored by Infinite Red, a premium custom mobile app and web design and development agency. We are a team of designers and developers distributed across the USA and based out of Portland, Oregon and the San Francisco Bay Area. Our specialties are UI/UX design, React and React Native, Node, and more. Email [email protected] if you'd like to talk about your project!