cli-gen

Dependency-free, opinionated node.js CLI skeleton generator that is structured to allow automatic rolling upgrades of framework code.

Opinionated choices:

• CLI framework: commander
• Logging: winston
• Tests: jest
• Promise flow control: async
• Console colors: chalk

All packages are installed at the latest release on new project creation using npm install.

Install

Install the global cli-gen executable:

npm install -g cli-gen

Or use without installing by using npx (not npm):

npx cli-gen

Usage

• Initial use: in a blank directory, run cli-gen --apply to create a new CLI project skeleton. The project name is used to generate a new package.json file. Follow the development guidelines below to ensure that any skeleton code can be automatically updated in future releases.

• Upgrade boilerplate: run cli-gen --apply in an existing project directory. This requires that the development guidelines below are adhered to.

• Dry run: run cli-gen without arguments to see what cli-gen would have done.

• Link command globally: npm link .

Development Guidelines

A single CLI command corressponding to your project name will be specfied in package.json under the bin entry. This command will perform git-style subcommands using the commander module, while setting up the CLI environment (logging, global helpers, etc.).

CLI subcommands follow a directory-based structure in the following root folder: lib/cli/verbs. A bare-bones "about" verb is created in the about folder.

Following the development guidelines below, user code and framework/skeleton code will be isolated for independent upgrades.

Guideline 1

• Interface with the framework as independent commander subcommands.

New features should start with a subcommand folder in lib/cli/verbs with its specified set of options.

Guideline 2

• Additive source changes are fine.

Files and directories can be added anywhere, as long as files do not include the following text on its own line:

/* cli-gen: auto-generated, do not edit. */