Usage Specification

Usage is a spec and CLI for defining CLI tools. Arguments, flags, environment variables, and config files can all be defined in a Usage spec. It can be thought of like OpenAPI (swagger) for CLIs. Here are some potential reasons for defining your CLI with a Usage spec:

• Generate autocompletion scripts
• Generate markdown documentation
• Generate man pages
• Generate type-safe SDK client libraries for TypeScript, Python, and Rust
• Use an advanced arg parser in any language
• Scaffold one spec into different CLI frameworks—even different languages
• [coming soon] Host your CLI documentation on usage.sh

Example Usage Spec

Usage specs are written in kdl which is a newer document language that sort of combines the best of XML and JSON. Here is a basic example CLI definition:

// optional metadata
name "My CLI"        // a friendly name for the CLI
bin "mycli"          // the name of the binary
about "some help"    // a short description of the CLI
version "1.0.0"      // the version of the CLI
author "nobody"      // the author of the CLI
license "MIT"        // license the CLI is released under

// a standard flag
flag "-f --force"   help="Always do the thing"
flag "-v --version" help="Print the CLI version"
flag "-h --help"    help="Print the CLI help"

// a flag that takes a value
flag "-u --user <user>" help="User to run as"

arg "<dir>"  help="The directory to use" // required positional argument
arg "[file]" help="The file to read"     // optional positional argument

And here is an example CLI with nested subcommands:

flag "-v --verbose" "Enable verbose logging" global=#true count=#true
flag "-q --quiet" "Enable quiet logging" global=#true
flag "-u --user <user>" help="User to run as"

cmd "update" help="Update the CLI"
cmd "config" help="Manage the CLI config" {
  // "set" is an alias for "add"
  cmd "add" "Add/set a config" {
    alias "set"
    arg "<key>" help="The key for the config"
    arg "<value>" help="The new config value"
    flag "-f --force" help="Overwrite existing config"
  }
  cmd "remove" help="Remove a thing" {
    alias "rm"
    alias "delete" hide=#true // hide alias from docs and completions
    arg "<name>" help="The name of the thing"
  }
  cmd "list" help="List all things"
}
cmd "version" help="Print the CLI version"
cmd "help" help="Print the CLI help"

Flags/args can be backed by config files, environment variables, or defaults:

config_file ".mycli.toml" findup=#true
flag "-u --user <user>" help="User to run as" env="MYCLI_USER" config="settings.user" default="admin"

The priority over which is used (CLI flag, env var, config file, default) is the order which they are defined, so in this example it will be "CLI flag > env var > config file > default".

Command effects

A command can declare what running it does to the world:

cmd "ls"        effect="read"        help="List installed tools"
cmd "use"       effect="write"       help="Install a tool and add it to the config"
cmd "uninstall" effect="destructive" help="Remove a tool"

Effect	Meaning
read	Only inspects state. Running it twice is the same as running it once.
write	Creates or modifies state, but removes nothing the user cannot recreate.
destructive	May delete or irreversibly overwrite something. Deserves a confirmation prompt.

This is a coarse classification, not a permission model. It exists because several consumers keep reinventing the same distinction:

• generated documentation and --help can mark destructive commands
• a wrapper script can require confirmation before running one
• an AI coding agent can be handed an allowlist of read-only commands instead of prompting on every invocation

effect is not inherited by subcommands. git remote and git remote remove do different things, and quietly inheriting a parent's effect would make the least safe reading of a spec the default one. A command with no effect is unknown, not safe — consumers should treat the absence of a value as "ask".

Flags and arguments

Some commands are only dangerous depending on how they are invoked. A flag or an argument can raise the effect when it is supplied:

cmd "logs" effect="read" help="Show daemon logs" {
  flag "--clear" effect="destructive" help="Delete stored logs"
  flag "--follow"
}

cmd "settings" effect="read" {
  arg "[setting]"
  arg "[value]" effect="write"   // `settings foo` reads, `settings foo=bar` writes
}

The effect of an invocation is the maximum of the command's effect and the effect of every flag and argument actually supplied. read < write < destructive, so the maximum is well defined, and SpecCommand::effect_of computes it.

Most flags should declare nothing. The field is for the handful that change what a command does to the world, not for annotating every option.

A flag or argument can only ever raise the effect, never lower it. That makes the rule safe to approximate: a consumer that has a spec but not a parsed command line can take the maximum over the command and all of its flags and arguments — SpecCommand::max_effect — and still never under-report danger.

--dry-run is the tempting counterexample. Lowering is deliberately not supported, because a bug in a dry-run path would then produce a spec that claims a command is safe when it is not.

It can also be written as a child node, which is easier to generate:

cmd "uninstall" {
  effect "destructive"
}

Compatibility

Usage is not designed to model every possible CLI. It's generally designed for CLIs that follow standard GNU-style options. While it is not high priority, adding support for CLIs that differ from the standard may be allowed. As an example, some CLIs may accept multiple options on a flag: --flag option1 option2. This is poor design as it's unclear to the user if "option2" is another positional arg or not. What we will likely do for behaviors like this is allow it, but show a warning that it is not recommended.

CLI Framework Developers

You could think of Usage like an LSP (Language Server Protocol) for CLIs.

Those building CLI frameworks can really benefit from Usage. Rather than building features like autocompletion for every shell, just output a Usage definition and use the Usage CLI to generate autocompletion scripts for all of the shells it supports.