blockctl

Blockware command line utility

Introduces using blockware through blockctl commands.

The purpose of blockctl is to make it simple to automate things either locally or on servers - as well as giving people comfortable with terminals a way to quickly perform certain actions.

Install:

npm i @blockware/blockctl -g

Use:

blockctl help

Structure

The tool itself is built up of a series of "commands". Each command is its own module except for a few built-in core commands.

Installing or updating commands

It uses the NPM registry to install and update commands - and to install a new command you can simply do

blockctl install you-npm-command-module

or the short version

blockctl i you-npm-command-module

Upgrading is similar - simply write:

blockctl upgrade you-npm-command-module

Extending

To implement a command for blockctl we use @blockware/blockctl-command and the module must then be published as an NPM module for blockctl to install it

blockctl expects a command property in the package.json file of the command. This command property should contain the name of your command - e.g.

{
  "name": "@blockware/blockctl-command-codegen",
  "command": "codegen",
  ...
} 

Typically you'd want to not publish and download all the time during development. for that purpose you can navigate to the folder in which you are developing a command and run

blockctl link [command-name]

The optional "command-name" parameter is to override what is in the package.json file as mentioned before - or if nothing is there to specify one.

blockctl will then create a symlink - very similar to how npm link works - which allows it to find your local version of the command.