possible to show all arguments of all subcommands all at once?

[shi-yan]

I'm currently implementing a cli with subcommands:

by default, it lists out the subcommands, but omits the mandatory arguments of them.

Usage: quipquick <COMMAND>

Commands:
  new    Start a new blog
  write  Create a new post
  pub    Generate your blog
  help   Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -h, --help     Print help
  -V, --version  Print version

to see the help for each subcommand, a user has to type:

maincomand subcommand --help

this is not ideal, because the help for the maincommand gives the wrong impression that the subcommands don't have arguments. a new user might simply type the following, and omit an important argument.

maincommand subcommand

what I hope to show is this

Usage: quipquick <COMMAND>

Commands:
  new    Start a new blog
    Options:
      -name    Blog name
      -author  Blog author
  write  Create a new post
    Options:
       -title    Title
       -tags    Tags
  pub    Generate your blog
  help   Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -h, --help     Print help
  -V, --version  Print version

is this possible?

[epage]

this is not ideal, because the help for the maincommand gives the wrong impression that the subcommands don't have arguments. a new user might simply type the following, and omit an important argument.

This is actually fairly standard in CLIs:

• Docker
• Git
• Cargo

Doing this would be "innovating" within the space and I personally don't see enough value from it compared to the overwhelming of the user that would happen.

That said, there is an exception to this standard when subcommands are more of operations within a command rather than a command on their own. git stash -h is an example of this. This is supported. I'm not able to look it up at this time but it has flat in the name, like Command:flatten_help. The git cookbook examples use it on git stash.