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Tutorial

This tutorial will get you started with a new, empty Stricli application and show you how to modify it to suit your needs.

Generate a New Node Application​

If you have issues with this generator, please open an issue on its source repo here.

Step 1: @stricli/create-app​

Run the following command.

npx @stricli/create-app@latest my-app

This command will create a new directory my-app and populate it with the boilerplate for a Stricli application. You can also pass the following options if you wish to customize the generated application.

FLAGS
     [--type]                              Package type, controls output format of JS files [commonjs|module, default = module]
     [--template]                          Application template to generate                 [single|multi, default = multi]
     [--auto-complete/--no-auto-complete]  Include auto complete postinstall script         [default = true]
  -n [--name]                              Package name, if different from directory
     [--command]                           Intended bin command, if different from name
  -d [--description]                       Package description                              [default = Stricli command line application]
     [--license]                           Package license                                  [default = MIT]
     [--author]                            Package author                                   [default = ""]
  -h  --help                               Print help information and exit
  -v  --version                            Print version information and exit

ARGUMENTS
  path  Target path of new package directory

Step 2: Install dependencies​

The generated application will only contain package.json. To actually install the declared dependencies, cd to that directory and run npm install --ignore-scripts. The ignore is needed when using --auto-complete (enabled by default) as it adds a postinstall script to install the auto complete functionality.

Step 3: Build application​

The boilerplate includes a build script that invokes tsup. Note that this tool uses esbuild to compile the project to a single output file and it will not perform type checking by default.

Step 4: Test the output​

Stricli applications can be executed directly in source, or in a separate script. This template generates a src/bin/cli.ts file to invoke run so that the rest of the source only contains exports without side-effects. Try running your new app by calling the compiled bin script at dist/cli.js with --help.

dist/cli.js --help
USAGE
  my-app subdir
  my-app nested foo|bar ...
  my-app --help
  my-app --version

Stricli command line application

FLAGS
  -h --help     Print this help information and exit
  -v --version  Print version information and exit

COMMANDS
  subdir  Command in subdirectory
  nested  Nested commands
dist/cli.js nested --help
USAGE
  my-app nested foo
  my-app nested bar
  my-app nested --help

Nested commands

FLAGS
  -h --help  Print this help information and exit

COMMANDS
  foo  Nested foo command
  bar  Nested bar command

You should see this exact output if you generated a multi-command app. Since Stricli applications are all defined in code, you can keep this file layout or move the files/declarations around as you want. Just be aware that everything except the impl.ts files will be loaded synchronously on app load, so be mindful of what you import and where.

Single Command​

You can optionally choose to run npx @stricli/create-app@latest --template single to generate a single command app.

If you generated a single command app, your initial output should look like this:

dist/cli.js --help
USAGE
  my-app --count value arg1
  my-app --help
  my-app --version

Stricli command line application

FLAGS
     --count    Number of times to say hello
  -h --help     Print this help information and exit
  -v --version  Print version information and exit

ARGUMENTS
  arg1  Your name

If you see that output, you have successfully generated a new Stricli application!

dist/cli.js World --count 3
Hello World!
Hello World!
Hello World!