Cli design

Skill shinzoxD/knackbox/skills/coding/cli-design

Design developer CLIs with clear UX, exit codes, flags, and help text. Use whenever the user builds a command-line tool, debates flags vs subcommands, stdout vs stderr, or asks how to structure a CLI for engineers.From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add shinzoxD/knackbox --skill cli-design

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

0 stars0 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

What its file declares

Copied from the file, not written here

The file declares its own license as Apache-2.0. That is the author’s claim about this one file, and it is not the same thing as the license GitHub reports for the repository, which is listed with the other numbers below.

SKILL.md

1.4 KB, 235 tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it

CLI Design

Great CLIs are boring: predictable flags, scriptable output, useful errors, and stable exit codes.

Principles

Subcommands for verbs; flags for options.
stdout for data; stderr for logs/progress.
--help accurate; examples in help.
Exit 0 success; non-zero for classes of failure.
--json or stable machine output when automation matters.
Sensible defaults; prompt only when interactive and needed.
Never break scripts with decorative Unicode unless optional.

Output format

## CLI: <name>
### Commands
### Global flags
### Output contract
### Exit codes
### Examples

Rules

Prefer composition over god flags.
Document config file precedence.
Color auto-detect; --no-color.
Version with --version.
Destructive commands need --force or confirm.

Edge cases

Pipes: behave well in CI.
Windows paths: accept both separators when reasonable.
Plugins: discovery and naming.

What ships with it: 1 file

1.0 KB alongside SKILL.md

benchmarks/

prompts.json1.0 KB