Features

Commands

• Define commands as methods

• Parameter Resolvers

  Inject console and other contexts as a parameter: IConsole, CommandContext, CancellationToken & IPrompter by default.

• Infinite nesting of subcommands

  • Nested classes
  • Composed classes
  • Commands can define arguments that appear in all subcommands

• Command Interception

  • via interceptor methods (aka hooks)

    allows logic before and after a command or subcommands run

  • via middleware

• Method Interception

  CommandContext.InvocationPipeline to access method and params

Data Types

• Primitives, Enums, Nullable<T> & Nullable Reference Types
• Lists, Arrays and IEnumberable<T> for streaming
• Password: mask value in logs and output with *****
• Any type with a
  • string constructor
  • static Parse(string) method
  • TypeConverter
• Custom Type Descriptors

  Customize parsing and the type name shown in help and

• Define allowed values by type

  Allowed values are shown in help and typo suggestions

Help

• Typo suggestions
• Auto generated help

  Aliases: -? -h --help

• Custom help generators

Dependency Injection

• MicrosoftDependencyInjection
• Autofac
• SimpleInjector
• Test injector
• Custom

Localization

• supports IStringLocalizer
• resx translation files available

  currently english only. PRs accepted

• json translation files available

  currently english only. PRs accepted

• [culture] directive

  set the culture for a command for manual verification

• Test support

Extensibility

• Custom middleware
• Custom directives
• Custom token transformations
• Custom parameter resolvers

Other

• Ctrl+C
• Name casing

  consistent name casing via Humanizer

• Spectre AnsiConsole

  ansi, colors, markup syntax, prompting, progress bars, tables. live displays, test capture, and much more

Arguments

• Positional (operands)
• Named (options)
  • Short and long names
  • Flags
  • bundling aka clubbing
• Define arguments as parameters in methods
• Define arguments as properties in POCOs
  • POCOs can be nested for easier reuse of infrastructural arguments, i.e. dryrun, verbosity, etc.
• Option prefixes
  • Posix (default): - for short names and -- for long names
  • Windows (optional): / for both short and long names
  • Powershell (optional): - for long names

Argument Values

• Response Files
• Piped Input with streaming
• Negative numbers and other values starting with -

  Most frameworks treat these as options. We've got you covered.

• Prompts
  • Hide passwords
  • Multi-entry for collections
  • Auto prompt for missing arguments (optional)
  • Spectre AnsiConsole integration for alternate prompting experience
• Default from EnvVar
• Default from AppSetting
  • using [AppSetting] attribute
  • using naming conventions
  • using IArgumentModel as configuration object

Validation

• FluentValidation for argument models
• DataAnnotations

Testing

• BDD Framework

  Test an app as if run from the console

• Supports parallel test

  the whole framework avoids static state to support parallel test runs

• IConsole and SystemConsole covering most members of System.Console
  • TestConsole to capture output and mock piped and user input
  • Spectre AnsiConsole support also with AnsiTestConsole
• TestDependencyResolver

  new TestDependencyResolver{ dbSvc, httpSvc }

• TempFiles helper

  create and cleanup files used for tests

• Capture State

  Capture state within a run to help test custom middleware components

Diagnostics

• App Version

  -v or --version

• [debug] directive

  step into debugger

• [time] directive

  outputs the execution time of a command

• [parse] directive
  • show final values
  • show inputs and source

    original source of value, including > response file paths

  • show defaults and source

    including key if from EnvVar or AppSetting

• Command logging

  show parse output and optionally system info and app config