node-prompt

node-prompt lets you control a node application directly from another computer, using a REPL interface.

Usage

Getting started

var prompt = require('node-prompt').stdin({prompt: '> '}); // Read from stdin
 
// *** OR ***
 
var prompt = require('node-prompt').net({ // Read from a network connection
    prompt: '> ',
    port: 43210,
    allowMultipleClients: false
});
 
// The above options are the defaults

Set up some commands

prompt.command('getCurrentClients', function () {...});
prompt.command('doMyCustomAction', function () {...});
prompt.command('getUsageCPU', function () {...});

Or multiple commands at once

prompt.command({
    getCurrentClients: function () {...},
    doMyCustomAction: function () {...},
    getUsageCPU: function () {...}
});

Access the application

You can execute commands remotely by using the node-prompt CLI tool.

First, install the CLI tool:

sudo npm install -g node-prompt

Then connect to your node application, and start typing commands!

node-prompt myapplication.com:9000
> getUsageCPU
CPU usage at 2%
> doMyCustomAction 45 "this is a single argument"
You did a custom action with 2 arguments!

Synchronous and asynchronous return values

For synchronous commands, you can send back a response message by returning a string. If an error is thrown, that error message will be sent back as the response, instead.

You can only send response messages that are strings. If any other type of data is returned, an empty string is used instead.

There are two ways to have asynchronous commands...

Callbacks

If the first argument of the handler is named $callback, a node-style callback function will be passed as that argument. All other arguments will come after.

prompt.command('getUsername', function ($callback, emailAddress) {
    getUsername(emailAddress, $callback);
});

Promises

If the handler returns a promise (or promise-like object), its fulfillment value or rejection reason will be used as the response message.

prompt.command('getUsername', function (emailAddress) {
    return getUsername(emailAddress);
});