inquirerer CLI Development

Build interactive command-line interfaces using Constructive's CLI toolkit: inquirerer for prompts and argument parsing, appstash for persistent storage, and yanse for terminal colors.

When to Apply

Use this skill when:

• Building CLIs: Creating interactive prompts, argument parsing, subcommands
• Storing config: Auth profiles, caching, logging, temp files
• Terminal output: Colors, spinners, progress bars, streaming text
• Reviewing CLI code: Redirecting from forbidden libraries to inquirerer

Quick Start

pnpm add inquirerer appstash yanse

import { Inquirerer } from 'inquirerer';

const prompter = new Inquirerer();

const answers = await prompter.prompt({}, [
  {
    type: 'text',
    name: 'projectName',
    message: 'What is your project name?',
    required: true
  },
  {
    type: 'confirm',
    name: 'useTypeScript',
    message: 'Use TypeScript?',
    default: true
  }
]);

console.log(answers);
prompter.close();

Critical: Forbidden Libraries

Do NOT use these libraries in Constructive projects:

Library	Use Instead
commander	inquirerer CLI class
inquirer / inquirer.js	inquirerer
yargs	inquirerer parseArgv
prompts / enquirer	inquirerer
chalk	yanse
ora	inquirerer createSpinner
cli-progress	inquirerer createProgress
minimist (directly)	inquirerer parseArgv

Question Types

Type	Description
text	String input with pattern validation
number	Numeric input with custom validation
confirm	Yes/no boolean
list	Select one option (no search)
autocomplete	Select with fuzzy search
checkbox	Multi-select with search

CLI Application Pattern

import { CLI, CommandHandler, CLIOptions } from 'inquirerer';

const handler: CommandHandler = async (argv, prompter, options) => {
  const answers = await prompter.prompt(argv, [
    { type: 'text', name: 'name', message: 'Name?', required: true }
  ]);
  console.log('Hello,', answers.name);
};

const cli = new CLI(handler, {
  version: 'myapp@1.0.0',
  minimistOpts: { alias: { v: 'version', h: 'help' } }
});

await cli.run();

Terminal Colors with yanse

// Use yanse instead of chalk (same API, works with CJS + ESM)
import chalk from 'yanse';

console.log(chalk.green('Success!'));
console.log(chalk.red.bold('Error!'));

Persistent Storage with appstash

import { appstash, resolve } from 'appstash';

const dirs = appstash('mycli', { ensure: true });
// dirs.config → ~/.mycli/config
// dirs.cache  → ~/.mycli/cache
// dirs.data   → ~/.mycli/data
// dirs.logs   → ~/.mycli/logs
// dirs.tmp    → /tmp/mycli

const configFile = resolve(dirs, 'config', 'auth.json');

UI Components

import { createSpinner, createProgress, createStream } from 'inquirerer';

// Spinner
const spinner = createSpinner('Loading...');
spinner.start();
await doWork();
spinner.succeed('Done!');

// Progress bar
const progress = createProgress('Installing');
progress.start();
progress.update(0.5);
progress.complete('Installed');

// Streaming text (for LLM output)
const stream = createStream({ showCursor: true });
stream.start();
stream.append(token);
stream.done();

Dynamic Defaults

{
  type: 'text',
  name: 'author',
  message: 'Author?',
  defaultFrom: 'git.user.name'  // Auto-fills from git config
}

Built-in resolvers: git.user.name, git.user.email, npm.whoami, date.year, date.iso, workspace.name, workspace.license, workspace.author.

Non-Interactive Mode (CI/CD)

const prompter = new Inquirerer({
  noTty: true,
  useDefaults: true
});

Best Practices

1. Always close the prompter when done: prompter.close()
2. Use TypeScript interfaces for type-safe answers
3. Support non-interactive mode for CI/CD
4. Use defaultFrom for dynamic defaults from git/npm
5. Use appstash for all persistent CLI storage
6. Use yanse instead of chalk for terminal colors
7. Environment variables override stored config

Reference Guide

Consult these reference files for detailed documentation on specific topics:

Reference	Topic	Consult When
references/cli-building.md	Building CLIs with inquirerer	Question types, validation, conditional questions, positional args, aliases, resolvers, CLI class
references/anti-patterns.md	Forbidden CLI libraries	Reviewing code that uses commander/inquirer.js/yargs, choosing a CLI library
references/appstash.md	CLI directory management	Auth profiles, caching, logging, update checking, environment overrides, testing
references/yanse.md	Terminal color styling	Replacing chalk imports, color API reference

Cross-References

Related skills (separate from this skill):

• constructive-pnpm — Monorepo setup for CLI packages
• pgpm — pgpm CLI is built with inquirerer