DEPRECATION NOTICE

This library has been depreciated. Use classy-commander or commander instead!

kitten-cli

The purrfect Command Line parsing library for Node.js console apps!

Description

Kitten CLI enables rapid development of command line apps / tasks in node.

Installation

npm install kitten-cli --save

Usage

Simple Hello World Example

index.js

var cli = require('kitten-cli');

cli
    .command('greet')
    .value('name')
    .action(greet);

cli.run();

function greet(command) {
    console.log('Hello ' + command.value('name'));
}

Running node index.js greet World would print Hello World to the console

Importing

var cli = require('kitten-cli');

Registering Commands

There are 2 ways to register commands:

• You can use the fluent API:

cli
    .command('login')
    .value('user-name')
    .value('password')
    .option('-r', '--remember-me')
    .action(login)
    
    .command('logout')
    .action(logout);

• Or declare your commands in a file using the intuitive DSL:

commands.txt

login <user-name> <password> -r|--remember-me
logout

Then load your commands from the file:

index.js

cli.commandsFromFile('commands.txt');

Note that if you use the DSL and you want to associate actions with your commands you still need to wire up your actions via the fluent API afterwards.

cli
    .command('login').action(login)
    .command('logout').action(logout);

Using options

You can declare options for a command. Note that you can specify multiple names for an option.

index.js

cli
    .command('greet')
    .value('name')
    .option('-s', '--shout')
    .action(showGreeting);

cli.run();

...

Then check them in your action handler:

...

function showGreeting(command) {
    var message = 'Hi ' + command.value('name');
    
    if (command.option('shout')) {
        message = message.toUpperCase();
    }
    
    console.log(message);
}

Running node index.js greet Zoidberg will print Hi Zoidberg

Running node index.js greet Zoidberg -s will print HI ZOIDBERG

Options with values

If you declare a value right after declaring an option, the value will be associated with the option (not the command).

cli
    .command('bio')
    .value('first-name')
    .option('-l', '--last-name').value('last-name')
    .option('-a', '--age').value('age')
    .action(showBio);

function showBio(command) {
    var message = 'First Name: ' + command.value('first-name');
    
    if (command.option('last-name')) {
        message += '\nLast Name' + command
            .option('last-name')
            .value('last-name');
    }

    if (command.option('age')) {
        message += '\nAge:' + command
            .option('age')
            .value('age');
    }
    
    console.log(message);
}

Running node index.js bio Rick --last-name Sanchez --age 60 would print:

First Name: Rick
Last Name: Sanchez
Age: 60

Got an Issue / Feature Request?

Then please add an issue on GitHub! 😺