liftoff

What is liftoff?

Liftoff is a lightweight CLI framework that helps you build command-line tools. It provides a way to bootstrap your CLI application with support for configuration files, environment variables, and plugins.

What are liftoff's main functionalities?

Command-line Interface Bootstrapping

This feature allows you to bootstrap a CLI application with Liftoff. The code sample demonstrates how to create a new Liftoff instance and launch it, printing the environment information.

const Liftoff = require('liftoff');
const MyApp = new Liftoff({
  name: 'myapp',
  moduleName: 'myapp',
  configName: 'myappfile',
  extensions: {
    '.js': null
  }
});
MyApp.launch({}, (env) => {
  console.log('MyApp is running!');
  console.log('Environment:', env);
});

Configuration File Support

Liftoff supports loading configuration files. The code sample shows how to load a configuration file if it exists and print its contents.

const Liftoff = require('liftoff');
const MyApp = new Liftoff({
  name: 'myapp',
  configName: 'myappfile',
  extensions: {
    '.js': null
  }
});
MyApp.launch({}, (env) => {
  if (env.configPath) {
    const config = require(env.configPath);
    console.log('Loaded config:', config);
  } else {
    console.log('No config file found.');
  }
});

Environment Variable Support

Liftoff can access and utilize environment variables. The code sample demonstrates how to print all environment variables when the CLI application is launched.

const Liftoff = require('liftoff');
const MyApp = new Liftoff({
  name: 'myapp',
  configName: 'myappfile',
  extensions: {
    '.js': null
  }
});
MyApp.launch({}, (env) => {
  console.log('Environment Variables:', process.env);
});

Other packages similar to liftoff

commander

Commander is a popular package for building command-line interfaces. It provides a simple and flexible way to define commands, options, and arguments. Compared to Liftoff, Commander focuses more on command parsing and less on configuration and environment management.

yargs

Yargs is another powerful library for building CLI applications. It offers extensive features for parsing arguments, generating help messages, and handling commands. Yargs provides more built-in utilities for argument parsing compared to Liftoff, which focuses on bootstrapping and configuration.

oclif

Oclif is a framework for building command-line tools, developed by Heroku. It provides a robust structure for creating complex CLI applications with plugins and command management. Oclif is more opinionated and feature-rich compared to Liftoff, which is more lightweight and flexible.

README

liftoff

Launch your command line tool with ease.

What is it?

See this blog post, check out this proof of concept, or read on.

Say you're writing a CLI tool. Let's call it hacker. You want to configure it using a Hackerfile. This is node, so you install hacker locally for each project you use it in. But, in order to get the hacker command in your PATH, you also install it globally.

Now, when you run hacker, you want to configure what it does using the Hackerfile in your current directory, and you want it to execute using the local installation of your tool. Also, it'd be nice if the hacker command was smart enough to traverse up your folders until it finds a Hackerfile—for those times when you're not in the root directory of your project. Heck, you might even want to launch hacker from a folder outside of your project by manually specifying a working directory. Liftoff manages this for you.

So, everything is working great. Now you can find your local hacker and Hackerfile with ease. Unfortunately, it turns out you've authored your Hackerfile in coffee-script, or some other JS variant. In order to support that, you have to load the compiler for it, and then register the extension for it with node. Good news, Liftoff can do that, and a whole lot more, too.

Usage

const Liftoff = require('liftoff');

const Hacker = new Liftoff({
  name: 'hacker',
  processTitle: 'hacker',
  moduleName: 'hacker',
  configName: 'hackerfile',
  extensions: {
    '.js': null,
    '.json': null,
    '.coffee': 'coffee-script/register',
  },
  v8flags: ['--harmony'], // or v8flags: require('v8flags')
});

Hacker.prepare({}, function (env) {
  Hacker.execute(env, function (env) {
    // Do post-execute things
  });
});

API

constructor(opts)

Create an instance of Liftoff to invoke your application.

opts.name

Sugar for setting processTitle, moduleName, configName automatically.

Type: String

Default: null

These are equivalent:

const Hacker = Liftoff({
  processTitle: 'hacker',
  moduleName: 'hacker',
  configName: 'hackerfile',
});

const Hacker = Liftoff({ name: 'hacker' });

Type: String

Default: null

opts.configName

Sets the name of the configuration file Liftoff will attempt to find. Case-insensitive.

Type: String

Default: null

opts.extensions

Set extensions to include when searching for a configuration file. If an external module is needed to load a given extension (e.g. .coffee), the module name should be specified as the value for the key.

Type: Object

Default: {".js":null,".json":null}

Examples:

In this example Liftoff will look for myappfile{.js,.json,.coffee}. If a config with the extension .coffee is found, Liftoff will try to require coffee-script/require from the current working directory.

const MyApp = new Liftoff({
  name: 'myapp',
  extensions: {
    '.js': null,
    '.json': null,
    '.coffee': 'coffee-script/register',
  },
});

In this example, Liftoff will look for .myapp{rc}.

const MyApp = new Liftoff({
  name: 'myapp',
  configName: '.myapp',
  extensions: {
    rc: null,
  },
});

In this example, Liftoff will automatically attempt to load the correct module for any javascript variant supported by interpret (as long as it does not require a register method).

const MyApp = new Liftoff({
  name: 'myapp',
  extensions: require('interpret').jsVariants,
});

opts.v8flags

Any flag specified here will be applied to node, not your program. Useful for supporting invocations like myapp --harmony command, where --harmony should be passed to node, not your program. This functionality is implemented using flagged-respawn. To support all v8flags, see v8flags.

Type: Array or Function

Default: null

If this method is a function, it should take a node-style callback that yields an array of flags.

opts.processTitle

Sets what the process title will be.

Type: String

Default: null

opts.completions(type)

A method to handle bash/zsh/whatever completions.

Type: Function

Default: null

opts.configFiles

An array of configuration files to find with each value being a path arguments.

The order of the array indicates the priority that config file overrides are applied. See Config Files for the config file specification and description of overrides.

Note: This option is useful if, for example, you want to support an .apprc file in addition to an appfile.js. If you only need a single configuration file, you probably don't need this. In addition to letting you find multiple files, this option allows more fine-grained control over how configuration files are located.

Type: Array

Default: null

Path arguments

The fined module accepts a string representing the path to search or an object with the following keys:

• path (required)

  The path to search. Using only a string expands to this property.

  Type: String

  Default: null

• name

  The basename of the file to find. Extensions are appended during lookup.

  Type: String

  Default: Top-level key in configFiles

• extensions

  The extensions to append to name during lookup. See also: opts.extensions.

  Type: String or Array or Object Default: The value of opts.extensions

• cwd

  The base directory of path (if relative).

  Type: String

  Default: The value of opts.cwd

• findUp

  Whether the path should be traversed up to find the file.

  Type: Boolean

  Default: false

Examples:

In this example Liftoff will look for the .hacker.js file relative to the cwd as declared in configFiles.

const MyApp = new Liftoff({
  name: 'hacker',
  configFiles: [
    { name: '.hacker', path: '.' }
  ],
});

In this example, Liftoff will look for .hackerrc in the home directory.

const MyApp = new Liftoff({
  name: 'hacker',
  configFiles: [
    {
      name: '.hacker',
      path: '~',
      extensions: {
        rc: null,
      },
    },
  ],
});

In this example, Liftoff will look in the cwd and then lookup the tree for the .hacker.js file.

const MyApp = new Liftoff({
  name: 'hacker',
  configFiles: [
    {
      name: '.hacker',
      path: '.',
      findUp: true,
    },
  ],
});

In this example, Liftoff will use the home directory as the cwd and looks for ~/.hacker.js.

const MyApp = new Liftoff({
  name: 'hacker',
  configFiles: [
    {
      name: '.hacker',
      path: '.',
      cwd: '~',
    },
  ],
});

prepare(opts, callback(env))

Prepares the environment for your application with provided options, and invokes your callback with the calculated environment as the first argument. The environment can be modified before using it as the first argument to execute.

Example Configuration w/ Options Parsing:

const Liftoff = require('liftoff');
const MyApp = new Liftoff({ name: 'myapp' });
const argv = require('minimist')(process.argv.slice(2));
const onExecute = function (env, argv) {
  // Do post-execute things
};
const onPrepare = function (env) {
  console.log('my environment is:', env);
  console.log('my liftoff config is:', this);
  MyApp.execute(env, onExecute);
};
MyApp.prepare(
  {
    cwd: argv.cwd,
    configPath: argv.myappfile,
    preload: argv.preload,
    completion: argv.completion,
  },
  onPrepare
);

Example w/ modified environment

const Liftoff = require('liftoff');
const Hacker = new Liftoff({
  name: 'hacker',
  configFiles: [
    { name: '.hacker', path: '.', cwd: '~' }
  ],
});
const onExecute = function (env, argv) {
  // Do post-execute things
};
const onPrepare = function (env) {
  const config = env.config['.hacker'];
  Hacker.execute(env, config.forcedFlags, onExecute);
};
Hacker.prepare({}, onPrepare);

opts.cwd

Change the current working directory for this execution. Relative paths are calculated against process.cwd().

Type: String

Default: process.cwd()

Example Configuration:

const argv = require('minimist')(process.argv.slice(2));
MyApp.prepare(
  {
    cwd: argv.cwd,
  },
  function (env) {
    MyApp.execute(env, invoke);
  }
);

Matching CLI Invocation:

myapp --cwd ../

opts.configPath

Don't search for a config, use the one provided. Note: Liftoff will assume the current working directory is the directory containing the config file unless an alternate location is explicitly specified using cwd.

Type: String

Default: null

Example Configuration:

var argv = require('minimist')(process.argv.slice(2));
MyApp.prepare(
  {
    configPath: argv.myappfile,
  },
  function (env) {
    MyApp.execute(env, invoke);
  }
);

Matching CLI Invocation:

myapp --myappfile /var/www/project/Myappfile.js

Examples using cwd and configPath together:

These are functionally identical:

myapp --myappfile /var/www/project/Myappfile.js
myapp --cwd /var/www/project

These can run myapp from a shared directory as though it were located in another project:

myapp --myappfile /Users/name/Myappfile.js --cwd /var/www/project1
myapp --myappfile /Users/name/Myappfile.js --cwd /var/www/project2

opts.preload

A string or array of modules to attempt requiring from the local working directory before invoking the execute callback.

Type: String|Array Default: null

Example Configuration:

var argv = require('minimist')(process.argv.slice(2));
MyApp.prepare(
  {
    preload: argv.preload,
  },
  function (env) {
    MyApp.execute(env, invoke);
  }
);

Matching CLI Invocation:

myapp --preload coffee-script/register

callback(env)

A function called after your environment is prepared. A good place to modify the environment before calling execute. When invoked, this will be your instance of Liftoff. The env param will contain the following keys:

• cwd: the current working directory
• preload: an array of modules that liftoff tried to pre-load
• configNameSearch: the config files searched for
• configPath: the full path to your configuration file (if found)
• configBase: the base directory of your configuration file (if found)
• modulePath: the full path to the local module your project relies on (if found)
• modulePackage: the contents of the local module's package.json (if found)
• configFiles: an array of filepaths for each found config file (filepath values will be null if not found)
• config: an array of loaded config objects in the same order as configFiles

execute(env, [forcedFlags], callback(env, argv))

A function to start your application, based on the env given. Optionally takes an array of forcedFlags, which will force a respawn with those node or V8 flags during startup. Invokes your callback with the environment and command-line arguments (minus node & v8 flags) after the application has been executed.

Example:

const Liftoff = require('liftoff');
const MyApp = new Liftoff({ name: 'myapp' });
const onExecute = function (env, argv) {
  // Do post-execute things
  console.log('my environment is:', env);
  console.log('my cli options are:', argv);
  console.log('my liftoff config is:', this);
};
const onPrepare = function (env) {
  var forcedFlags = ['--trace-deprecation'];
  MyApp.execute(env, forcedFlags, onExecute);
};
MyApp.prepare({}, onPrepare);

callback(env, argv)

A function called after your application is executed. When invoked, this will be your instance of Liftoff, argv will be all command-line arguments (minus node & v8 flags), and env will contain the following keys:

• cwd: the current working directory
• preload: an array of modules that liftoff tried to pre-load
• configNameSearch: the config files searched for
• configPath: the full path to your configuration file (if found)
• configBase: the base directory of your configuration file (if found)
• modulePath: the full path to the local module your project relies on (if found)
• modulePackage: the contents of the local module's package.json (if found)
• configFiles: an array of filepaths for each found config file (filepath values will be null if not found)
• config: an array of loaded config objects in the same order as configFiles

events

on('preload:before', function(name) {})

Emitted before a module is pre-load. (But for only a module which is specified by opts.preload.)

var Hacker = new Liftoff({ name: 'hacker', preload: 'coffee-script' });
Hacker.on('preload:before', function (name) {
  console.log('Requiring external module: ' + name + '...');
});

on('preload:success', function(name, module) {})

Emitted when a module has been pre-loaded.

var Hacker = new Liftoff({ name: 'hacker' });
Hacker.on('preload:success', function (name, module) {
  console.log('Required external module: ' + name + '...');
  // automatically register coffee-script extensions
  if (name === 'coffee-script') {
    module.register();
  }
});

on('preload:failure', function(name, err) {})

Emitted when a requested module cannot be preloaded.

var Hacker = new Liftoff({ name: 'hacker' });
Hacker.on('preload:failure', function (name, err) {
  console.log('Unable to load:', name, err);
});

on('loader:success, function(name, module) {})

Emitted when a loader that matches an extension has been loaded.

var Hacker = new Liftoff({
  name: 'hacker',
  extensions: {
    '.ts': 'ts-node/register',
  },
});
Hacker.on('loader:success', function (name, module) {
  console.log('Required external module: ' + name + '...');
});

on('loader:failure', function(name, err) {})

Emitted when no loader for an extension can be loaded. Emits an error for each failed loader.

var Hacker = new Liftoff({
  name: 'hacker',
  extensions: {
    '.ts': 'ts-node/register',
  },
});
Hacker.on('loader:failure', function (name, err) {
  console.log('Unable to load:', name, err);
});

on('respawn', function(flags, child) {})

Emitted when Liftoff re-spawns your process (when a v8flags is detected).

var Hacker = new Liftoff({
  name: 'hacker',
  v8flags: ['--harmony'],
});
Hacker.on('respawn', function (flags, child) {
  console.log('Detected node flags:', flags);
  console.log('Respawned to PID:', child.pid);
});

Event will be triggered for this command: hacker --harmony commmand

Config files

Liftoff supports a small definition of config files, but all details provided by users will be available in env.config.

extends

All extends properties will be traversed and become the basis for the resulting config object. Any path provided for extends will be loaded with node's require, so all extensions and loaders supported on the Liftoff instance will be available to them.

Field matching the configName

Users can override the configPath via their config files by specifying a field with the same name as the primary configName. For example, the hackerfile property in a configFile will resolve the configPath and configBase against the path.

preload

If specified as a string or array of strings, they will be added to the list of preloads in the environment.

Examples

Check out how gulp uses Liftoff.

For a bare-bones example, try the hacker project.

To try the example, do the following:

1. Install the sample project hacker with npm install -g hacker.
2. Make a Hackerfile.js with some arbitrary javascript it.
3. Install hacker next to it with npm install hacker.
4. Run hacker while in the same parent folder.

License

MIT

Changelog

5.0.0 (2024-03-16)

⚠ BREAKING CHANGES

• Define configFiles with an array to prioritize configs (#133)
• Populate additional preload modules with configFiles (#131)
• Lookup configPath in configFiles (#128)

Features

• Define configFiles with an array to prioritize configs (#133) (55123fc)
• Lookup configPath in configFiles (#128) (5301335)
• Populate additional preload modules with configFiles (#131) (fad21a9)

Bug Fixes

• Disallow non-string configPath overrides (#130) (6bcd381)