ccli

ccli

Command line parsing in Go, with coloring support

This package wraps urfave/cli/v3 and adds coloring to help output. Section headers, command names, author info, and copyright each get their own color.

Usage

Install the package with:

go get github.com/saschagrunert/ccli/v3

Then use it like the cli package:

package main

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"os"
	"time"

	"github.com/saschagrunert/ccli/v3"
	"github.com/urfave/cli/v3"
)

func main() {
	cmd := ccli.NewCommand()
	cmd.Name = "AppName"
	cmd.Usage = "App usage..."
	cmd.Version = "0.1.0"
	cmd.Description = "Application description"
	cmd.Copyright = fmt.Sprintf("(c) %d Some Company", time.Now().Year())
	cmd.Authors = []any{"Name <e@mail.com>"}
	cmd.Flags = []cli.Flag{
		&cli.StringFlag{
			Name:  "lang",
			Value: "english",
			Usage: "language for the greeting",
		},
	}
	cmd.Commands = []*cli.Command{
		{
			Name:  "greet",
			Usage: "send a greeting",
			Commands: []*cli.Command{
				{
					Name:  "hello",
					Usage: "say hello",
					Action: func(_ context.Context, _ *cli.Command) error {
						fmt.Println("hello!")
						return nil
					},
				},
			},
		},
	}
	ccli.Apply(cmd) // colored help for all subcommands
	cmd.Action = func(_ context.Context, _ *cli.Command) error {
		fmt.Println("boom! I say!")
		return nil
	}
	if err := cmd.Run(context.Background(), os.Args); err != nil {
		os.Exit(1)
	}
}

Custom colors

Use functional options with NewCommandWith:

import (
	"github.com/fatih/color"
	"github.com/saschagrunert/ccli/v3"
)

cmd := ccli.NewCommandWith(
	ccli.WithGreen(color.New(color.FgHiGreen).SprintFunc()),
	ccli.WithYellow(color.New(color.FgHiYellow).SprintFunc()),
)

Or pass an Options struct to NewCommandWithOptions:

cmd := ccli.NewCommandWithOptions(ccli.Options{
	Green:  color.New(color.FgHiGreen).SprintFunc(),
	Yellow: color.New(color.FgHiYellow).SprintFunc(),
})

Any color left unset falls back to its default. To turn off all coloring:

cmd := ccli.NewCommandWith(ccli.WithDisable())

Subcommand colors

Subcommands added after creating the root command don't automatically get colored help. Call Apply (or ApplyWithOptions) after setting up your command tree:

cmd := ccli.NewCommand()
cmd.Commands = []*cli.Command{
	{Name: "serve", Usage: "start the server"},
	{Name: "config", Usage: "manage config", Commands: []*cli.Command{
		{Name: "show", Usage: "show config"},
	}},
}
ccli.Apply(cmd) // recursively sets colored templates on all subcommands

Migrating from v2

The v2 branch is deprecated. To upgrade:

1. Change imports from github.com/saschagrunert/ccli/v2 to github.com/saschagrunert/ccli/v3
2. Rename NewApp to NewCommand, NewAppWith to NewCommandWith, and NewAppWithOptions to NewCommandWithOptions
3. Follow the urfave/cli v3 migration guide for other cli.App to cli.Command changes

Notes

All help templates are set per-command via CustomRootCommandHelpTemplate and CustomHelpTemplate. No package-level globals are modified.

License

MIT