cli-tools Overview

In cli-tools, a tool is a top-level command (usually, a Babashka script) that contains many sub-commands.

At the core of cli-tools are two central components:

• The defcommand macro defined a special kind of function, a command function
• The dispatch function is the main entrypoint; it processes command line arguments and ultimately invokes the correct command function

A namespace may define any number of commands, and commands may be drawn from multiple namespaces.

When you have many commands, you can create groups; a group is a container of commands. Groups can even contain nested groups.

The top level command script's job is to make the call to dispatch, passing the options that describe all those namespaces and groups.

Command names should be long and expressive; when parsing command and group names, dispatch can recognize command and group names from shorter prefixes, as long as a prefix uniquely identifies a command (or group); when that isn't the case, dispatch will prompt you with possible completions and a reminder on how to get more extensive help.