cli-def 0.2.0

A declarative DSL for composable CLI applications with runtime and REPL

cli-def

A declarative DSL for defining CLI structures with a unified runtime and REPL for argparse/click backends.

project page: https://cli-def.tomesoft.net

source: https://github.com/tomesoft/cli-def

What's new in 0.2.0

• Introduced Resolved model layer
• Added parameter binding (bind)
• Added validate command
• Improved inheritance (inherit_from)
• Added support for relative paths (../)
• Improved help and dump output
• Introduced _early parsing phase

✨ Features

• Define CLI structure declaratively (TOML / Python models)
• Generate CLI implementations for:
  • argparse (standard library, no dependencies)
  • click (optional dependency)
• Separation of:
  • CLI definition (DSL)
  • Runtime implementation (builders)
• Built-in runtime system:
  • Event model (CliEvent)
  • Runner
  • Dispatcher
  • Entrypoint resolution (module:function)
  • Result propagation
• Interactive REPL support
• CLI chaining (execute one CLI from another)

📦 Installation

Core (argparse only)

pip install cli-def

With click support

pip install cli-def[click]

🚀 Quick Example

[cli]
key = "Your CLI"
help = "Help of your CLI"
prompt = "yourcli> "

[cli.echo]
args = [{key="message", mult="+"}]

cli-def run example.toml -- echo hello world

[run] forwarding args: ['echo', 'hello', 'world'], no_ctx_propagate: False
=== fallback handler ===
  PATH: ['Your CLI', 'echo']
  PARAMS: {'message': ['hello', 'world']}

🚀 Quick Start (Demo)

cli-def demo beginner

beginner profile reads in beginner.toml (see GitHub repository for details)

Type 'help' to list commands, 'exit' to exit
demo[beginner]> echo a b c d
a b c d

-> out[0]
demo[beginner]> greet John --upper
HELLO, JOHN!

-> out[1]

Advanced demo:

cli-def demo advanced

See profiles: https://github.com/tomesoft/cli-def/tree/main/src/cli_def/demo/profiles

🖥 Interactive Mode (REPL)

cli-def repl --file your_cli.toml
yourcli> help
yourcli> command arg1 --option value

🔁 Run Another CLI (CLI chaining)

cli-def run example.toml -- command arg1 arg2

• -- separates cli-def arguments from the target CLI arguments
• Remaining arguments are forwarded to the next CLI

📚 Documentation

Full documentation and design details are available on GitHub:

https://github.com/tomesoft/cli-def

• DSL specification
• Architecture
• Examples
• Development notes

📌 Roadmap

See TODO.md on GitHub: https://github.com/tomesoft/cli-def/blob/main/TODO.md

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome!

📄 License

MIT License