Inspired by the Spring Roo project, this library provides a simple way to write custom application specific shells with the following features:

• Auto-complete commands
• Command options
• Sub commands
• Extends from inquirer module - thus making all the features of inquirer available to the shell instance for taking user input.
• Default help command which automatically prints help for all commands. Any command suffixed with help will display the help for that command.

Install

$ npm install --save simple-shell

Usage

var shell = require('simple-shell');
shell.initialize(shellOptions);

// Register commands with the custom shell
shell.registerCommand(cmdOptions);

// Start the console and show prompt
shell.startConsole();

#>

shellOptions

{
  name: <String>,
  authorName: <String>,
  version: <String>,
  exitMessage: <String>,
  prompt: <String>
}

• name: Name of the console application. default: package.json:name.
• authorName: Name of the author/Owner of the application. default: package.json:author.name.
• version: Versionof the application. default: package.json:version.
• exitMessage: Message to be displayed when user quits the console app. default: Good Bye!.
• prompt: Prompt to be displayed. Ex: #>. default: package.json:name.

All the options are optional and will be fetched from package.json if not provided.

cmdOptions

{
  name: <String>,
  help: <String>,
  context: <String>,
  isAvailable: <Function>,
  options: {
    optionName: {
      help: <String>,
      required: <Boolean>,
      defaultValue: <String|Number|Boolean>,
      allowedValues: <Array>
    }
  },
  handler: <Function to be called when the command is run>
}

• name: Name of the command.
• help: Help string for the command that will be displayed when the user runs help.
• context: A string representing a context under which the command is running. If set, the application's context will be set to this string on successful execution of the command.
• isAvailable(context): The function that will be called to determine if a command is available for execution. default: always returns true.
• handler(cmd, options, context): The handler function that will be called to execute a command. If the command is not successful, it is expected to throw an Error. On successful execution of the command, the context will be set to command.context.
• optionName: Name of the option. This will be presented as --optionName to the user.
• optionName.help: Help string for the option.
• optionName.required: Indicates if the option is a mandatory option or not. default: false.
• optionName.defaultValue: The default value for an option if user doesn't provide one.
• optionName.allowedValues: A list of valid values for the option.

Pending documentation..