Appy

Makes your CLI demos 'appy

What makes it 'appy?

Instead of prototyping a CLI for your design proposal:

Fake it 'til you make it

Using a script to describe the interactions with a hypothetical CLI, you can demonstrate:

1. How your CLI reponds on stdout to a command
2. The files and directories your CLI creates/deletes/updates (so long as they're plain text)

Demo

Try this in a fresh terminal

# make the git binary be "appy" instead
alias git="./path/to/appy/executable"

# create a working dir for the appy demo. 
mkdir demo
cd demo

# generate a config that points to the demo script
# you can place this in a directory above your demo dir
# if you dont anyone to see it in your directory during
# your demo
echo "./path/to/appy/demos/git.yaml" > .appy

Now when you type git with unrecognized params, you will get a bell character to warn you that your demo is off script.

You can append APPY_DEBUG=TRUE to your command if you need more details on what you got wrong.

When you type it with the right params, you'll get the scripted behaviour:

Try:

$ git init .
$ ls 
$ cat git/never/does/this/readme.md
$ git status
$ git add .
$ git status
$ git commit -m "wip"

Todo:

• make the 'appy' CLI respond with appy commands when it's not invoked as a different binary
  • appy help
  • appy version
  • appy describe - let's you know what script is selected and tells you what is expected.
  • appy line current - whats the current line number, command and side effects
  • appy line set <n> - move the line
• make it possible to have extra lines that don't interact but produce a demo script
• parse arg string so it doesnt have to be broken into an array