Proper CLI is a Python library for creating composable, nestable, and ridiculously good looking command-line-user-interfaces from simple classes.

• Made for interfacing with humans.
• Arbitrary nesting and composition of commands.
• Automatic help page generation
• No need to redeclare paramaters and options with decorators, just write Python methods
• The help of a command is its docstring, why make it more complex?

Declare a class that inherits from proper_cli.Cli. Every method/attribute that does not starts with an underscore will be a command.

from proper_cli import Cli

class Manage(Cli):
    def first(self, arg1, arg2=3):
        pass

    def second(self):
        pass

    def _not_a_command(self):
        pass

Then, instance that class and call it.

# run.py
cli = Manage()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    cli()

The class dosctring will be printed at the beginning of the help page.

The arguments can be then passed by position:

python run.py first foo bar

or by name:

python run.py first -arg1 foo -arg2 bar

To pass a True use the name without a value, for a False, prepend the name of the argument with no-:

python run.py first -arg1 -no-arg2

If an attribute is a subclass of proper_cli.Cli, it will be a subgroup:

from proper_cli import Cli

class DBSub(Cli):
    def migrate(self):
        pass

class Manage(Cli):
    # A subgroup
    db = DBSub  # NOT `DBSub()`

You can pass any named argument as context to be used by your commands. This will be stored at the _env attribute.

Example:

>>> cli = Manage(lorem="ipsum")
>>> print(cli._env)
{"lorem": "ipsum"}

The image at the top was autogenerated by running this example:

# example.py
from proper_cli import Cli


class DBCli(Cli):
    """Database-related commands
    """

    def migrate(self, message):
        """Autogenerate a new revision file.

        This is an alias for "revision --autogenerate".

        Arguments:

        - message: Revision message

        """
        pass

    def branches(self):
        """Show all branches."""
        pass


class MyCli(Cli):
    """Welcome to Proper CLI 3
    """

    def new(self, path, quiet=False):
        """Creates a new Proper application at `path`.

        Arguments:

        - path: Where to create the new application.
        - quiet [False]: Supress all output.
        """
        pass

    def hello(count, name):
        """Simple program that greets NAME for a total of COUNT times."""
        pass

    # A subgroup!
    db = DBCli


cli = MyCli()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    cli()

Whenever you output text, you can surround the text with tags to color its output (thanks to https://github.com/sdispater/pastel). This is automatically enabled for the docstrings, but you can also have it by using proper_cli.echo() as a drop-in replacement of print().

# green text
echo("<fg=green>foo</fg=green>")

# black text on a cyan background
echo("<fg=black;bg=cyan>foo</>")

# bold text on a yellow background
echo("<bg=yellow;options=bold>foo</>")

Available foreground and background colors are: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white.

The available options are: bold, underscore, blink, reverse and conceal.

The closing tag can be replaced by </>, which revokes all formatting options established by the last opened tag.

These four styles are available by default:

# green text
echo("<info>foo</info>")

# yellow text
echo("<comment>foo</comment>")

# black text on a cyan background
echo("<question>foo</question>")

# white text on a red background
echo("<error>foo</error>")

It is possible to define your own styles using the proper_cli.add_style() method:

add_style("fire", fg="red", bg="yellow", options=["bold", "blink"])
echo("<fire>foo</fire>")

Beyond the CLI builder, proper_cli also includes some commonly-used helper functions

Ask a yes/no question via and return their answer.

Ask a question via input() and return their answer.

I find it too verbose.

Are you kidding? Because this looks better and is easier to use and understand.

Because this library fits better my mental model. I hope it matches yours as well.