Ask HN: What are some command line utilites that have great UX?

3 pointscmdli2 comments

I'm currently building a small utility (mainly for personal use), but I've realized I don't really have any great complex terminal interfaces to model off of. I mainly use programs that are required, not fun, so I was curious: what are the command line utilities that you enjoy using? What programs do you get a lot of use out of, but aren't bogged down with weird options or commands?

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I can't think of any cli tools with great UX :( usually the important tools have lots of obtuse commands, and the small neat tools only have a couple trivial options.

But here's some guidelines as you make your own tool: https://clig.dev/

I always appreciate tools with examples and a good help text. Also the ability to pipe with stdin/stdout if possible.

It’s a small detail, but I appreciate when a command-line tool offers both short and long options for all the switches. Short so I can type them quickly for manual use, and long for when I use the tool in a script and want the command invocation to be somewhat self-documenting.

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