An opinionated CLI framework for Node.js. Convention over configuration, end-to-end type safety.

📖 Documentation    ·    🐛 Issues

Features

• 🧰 Batteries included — Config, auth, prompts, logging, output, and middleware built in
• 📁 File-system auto-loading — Drop a file in commands/, get a command
• ⚡ Build and compile — Bundle your command tree or produce cross-platform standalone binaries
• 🚀 Two files to a full CLI — Define a schema, write a handler, done
• 🛠️ Developer experience — Scaffolding, hot reload, route inspection, and diagnostics out of the box

Install

npm install maltty

Usage

Define your CLI

// index.ts
import { cli } from 'maltty'
import { z } from 'zod'

await cli({
  name: 'deploy',
  version: '0.1.0',
  config: {
    schema: z.object({
      registry: z.string().url(),
      region: z.enum(['us-east-1', 'eu-west-1']),
    }),
  },
})

Add a command

// commands/deploy.ts
import { command } from 'maltty'
import { z } from 'zod'

export default command({
  description: 'Deploy to the configured registry',
  args: z.object({
    tag: z.string().describe('Image tag to deploy'),
    dry: z.boolean().default(false).describe('Dry run'),
  }),
  handler: async (ctx) => {
    ctx.log.info(`Deploying ${ctx.args.tag} to ${ctx.config.region}`)
  },
})

Add a screen

// commands/dashboard.tsx
import { screen, Box, Text, useScreenContext } from 'maltty/ui'
import { z } from 'zod'

function Dashboard({ env }: { env: string }) {
  const ctx = useScreenContext()
  return (
    <Box flexDirection="column">
      <Text bold>Dashboard — {env}</Text>
      <Text>Region: {ctx.config.region}</Text>
    </Box>
  )
}

export default screen({
  description: 'Launch an interactive dashboard',
  options: z.object({
    env: z.string().default('staging').describe('Target environment'),
  }),
  render: Dashboard,
})

Run it

maltty dev -- deploy --tag v1.2.3         # dev mode
maltty build                              # bundle
maltty compile                            # standalone binary

License

MIT