cli-ux

What is cli-ux?

The cli-ux npm package provides a set of utilities for building command-line interfaces (CLIs). It offers features such as progress bars, spinners, prompts, and table formatting to enhance the user experience of CLI applications.

What are cli-ux's main functionalities?

Progress Bar

This feature allows you to display a progress bar in the terminal. The code sample demonstrates how to create and update a progress bar that increments by 5% every 100 milliseconds until it reaches 100%.

const cli = require('cli-ux');

const progress = cli.progress({ format: 'progress [{bar}] {percentage}% | ETA: {eta}s' });
progress.start(100, 0);

let value = 0;
const interval = setInterval(() => {
  value += 5;
  progress.update(value);
  if (value >= 100) {
    clearInterval(interval);
    progress.stop();
  }
}, 100);

Spinner

This feature provides a spinner to indicate ongoing processes. The code sample shows how to start a spinner with a message and stop it after 3 seconds with a 'done' message.

const cli = require('cli-ux');

cli.action.start('Processing');
setTimeout(() => {
  cli.action.stop('done');
}, 3000);

Prompt

This feature allows you to prompt the user for input. The code sample demonstrates how to ask the user for their name and then greet them with the provided input.

const cli = require('cli-ux');

(async () => {
  const name = await cli.prompt('What is your name?');
  console.log(`Hello, ${name}!`);
})();

Table

This feature allows you to display data in a table format. The code sample shows how to create a table with two columns: 'name' and 'age', and display two rows of data.

const cli = require('cli-ux');

const data = [
  { name: 'John', age: 30 },
  { name: 'Jane', age: 25 }
];
cli.table(data, {
  name: {
    minWidth: 7
  },
  age: {
    header: 'Age'
  }
});

Other packages similar to cli-ux

ora

Ora is a lightweight and elegant terminal spinner. It provides similar functionality to the spinner feature in cli-ux but focuses solely on spinners, offering more customization options and better performance.

inquirer

Inquirer is a powerful library for creating interactive command-line prompts. It offers more advanced and flexible prompt types compared to cli-ux, making it a better choice for complex user interactions.

blessed

Blessed is a comprehensive library for building terminal interfaces. It provides a wide range of widgets, including tables, forms, and more, offering greater flexibility and customization than cli-ux.

progress

Progress is a simple and flexible progress bar library for Node.js. It offers similar functionality to the progress bar feature in cli-ux but with a more minimalistic approach and fewer dependencies.

README

cli-ux

cli IO utilities

Usage

The following assumes you have installed cli-ux to your project with npm install cli-ux or yarn add cli-ux and have it required in your script (TypeScript example):

import cli from 'cli-ux'
cli.prompt('What is your name?')

JavaScript:

const {cli} = require('cli-ux')

cli.prompt('What is your name?')

cli.prompt()

Prompt for user input.

// just prompt for input
await cli.prompt('What is your name?')

// mask input after enter is pressed
await cli.prompt('What is your two-factor token?', {type: 'mask'})

// mask input on keypress (before enter is pressed)
await cli.prompt('What is your password?', {type: 'hide'})

// yes/no confirmation
await cli.confirm('Continue?')

// "press any key to continue"
await cli.anykey()

cli.url(text, uri)

Create a hyperlink (if supported in the terminal)

await cli.url('sometext', 'https://google.com')
// shows sometext as a hyperlink in supported terminals
// shows https://google.com in unsupported terminals

cli.open

Open a url in the browser

await cli.open('https://oclif.io')

cli.action

Shows a spinner

// start the spinner
cli.action.start('starting a process')
// show on stdout instead of stderr
cli.action.start('starting a process', {stdout: true})

// stop the spinner
cli.action.stop() // shows 'starting a process... done'
cli.action.stop('custom message') // shows 'starting a process... custom message'

This degrades gracefully when not connected to a TTY. It queues up any writes to stdout/stderr so they are displayed above the spinner.

cli.annotation

Shows an iterm annotation

// start the spinner
cli.annotation('sometest', 'annotated with this text')

cli.wait

Waits for 1 second or given milliseconds

await cli.wait()
await cli.wait(3000)

cli.table

Displays tabular data

cli.table(data, columns, options)

Where:

• data: array of data objects to display
• columns: Table.Columns
• options: Table.Options

cli.table.flags() returns an object containing all the table flags to include in your command.

{
  columns: Flags.string({exclusive: ['additional'], description: 'only show provided columns (comma-separated)'}),
  sort: Flags.string({description: 'property to sort by (prepend '-' for descending)'}),
  filter: Flags.string({description: 'filter property by partial string matching, ex: name=foo'}),
  csv: Flags.boolean({exclusive: ['no-truncate'], description: 'output is csv format'}),
  extended: Flags.boolean({char: 'x', description: 'show extra columns'}),
  'no-truncate': Flags.boolean({exclusive: ['csv'], description: 'do not truncate output to fit screen'}),
  'no-header': Flags.boolean({exclusive: ['csv'], description: 'hide table header from output'}),
}

Passing {only: ['columns']} or {except: ['columns']} as an argument into cli.table.flags() will whitelist/blacklist those flags from the returned object.

Table.Columns defines the table columns and their display options.

const columns: Table.Columns = {
  // where `.name` is a property of a data object
  name: {}, // "Name" inferred as the column header
  id: {
    header: 'ID', // override column header
    minWidth: '10', // column must display at this width or greater
    extended: true, // only display this column when the --extended flag is present
    get: row => `US-O1-${row.id}`, // custom getter for data row object
  },
}

Table.Options defines the table options, most of which are the parsed flags from the user for display customization, all of which are optional.

const options: Table.Options = {
  printLine: myLogger, // custom logger
  columns: flags.columns,
  sort: flags.sort,
  filter: flags.filter,
  csv: flags.csv,
  extended: flags.extended,
  'no-truncate': flags['no-truncate'],
  'no-header': flags['no-header'],
}

Example class:

import {Command} from '@oclif/command'
import {cli} from 'cli-ux'
import axios from 'axios'

export default class Users extends Command {
  static flags = {
    ...cli.table.flags()
  }

  async run() {
    const {flags} = this.parse(Users)
    const {data: users} = await axios.get('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users')

    cli.table(users, {
      name: {
        minWidth: 7,
      },
      company: {
        get: row => row.company && row.company.name
      },
      id: {
        header: 'ID',
        extended: true
      }
    }, {
      printLine: this.log,
      ...flags, // parsed flags
    })
  }
}

Displays:

$ example-cli users
Name                     Company
Leanne Graham            Romaguera-Crona
Ervin Howell             Deckow-Crist
Clementine Bauch         Romaguera-Jacobson
Patricia Lebsack         Robel-Corkery
Chelsey Dietrich         Keebler LLC
Mrs. Dennis Schulist     Considine-Lockman
Kurtis Weissnat          Johns Group
Nicholas Runolfsdottir V Abernathy Group
Glenna Reichert          Yost and Sons
Clementina DuBuque       Hoeger LLC

$ example-cli users --extended
Name                     Company            ID
Leanne Graham            Romaguera-Crona    1
Ervin Howell             Deckow-Crist       2
Clementine Bauch         Romaguera-Jacobson 3
Patricia Lebsack         Robel-Corkery      4
Chelsey Dietrich         Keebler LLC        5
Mrs. Dennis Schulist     Considine-Lockman  6
Kurtis Weissnat          Johns Group        7
Nicholas Runolfsdottir V Abernathy Group    8
Glenna Reichert          Yost and Sons      9
Clementina DuBuque       Hoeger LLC         10

$ example-cli users --columns=name
Name
Leanne Graham
Ervin Howell
Clementine Bauch
Patricia Lebsack
Chelsey Dietrich
Mrs. Dennis Schulist
Kurtis Weissnat
Nicholas Runolfsdottir V
Glenna Reichert
Clementina DuBuque

$ example-cli users --filter="company=Group"
Name                     Company
Kurtis Weissnat          Johns Group
Nicholas Runolfsdottir V Abernathy Group

$ example-cli users --sort=company
Name                     Company
Nicholas Runolfsdottir V Abernathy Group
Mrs. Dennis Schulist     Considine-Lockman
Ervin Howell             Deckow-Crist
Clementina DuBuque       Hoeger LLC
Kurtis Weissnat          Johns Group
Chelsey Dietrich         Keebler LLC
Patricia Lebsack         Robel-Corkery
Leanne Graham            Romaguera-Crona
Clementine Bauch         Romaguera-Jacobson
Glenna Reichert          Yost and Sons

cli.tree

Generate a tree and display it

let tree = cli.tree()
tree.insert('foo')
tree.insert('bar')

let subtree = cli.tree()
subtree.insert('qux')
tree.nodes.bar.insert('baz', subtree)

tree.display()

Outputs:

├─ foo
└─ bar
   └─ baz
      └─ qux