Helpful
CLIs support users by giving suggestions, being empathetic and providing error messages to move them forward.
Support
- Always implement a help option with the two common flags: -h or --help
- Structure help sections with usage, commands, arguments, options and examples
- Provide help when users make invalid requests
- Provide documentation both at the terminal and online
- Document commands and extend documentation for your commands
- Provide auto-completion when possible
Errors
- Keep users informed
- Provide text-based error descriptions
- Present errors logically, e.g. by location or type
- Present all errors where they are the most discoverable, e.g. at the end of the command line