Crawl, walk & run your way to usable CLIs in Go

What It Covers

Wesley Berry shares his journey building Anchor's CLI in Go, deviating from standard libraries like Cobra and Bubble Tea to create custom testing and user experience solutions.

Key Questions Answered

• •Golden File Testing: Custom implementation prevents race conditions in CLI output testing by ensuring consistent rendering capture, unlike Charm's experimental library that missed timing-dependent elements like spinners.
• •Interactive CLI Design: Implement auto-authentication and org selection prompts instead of failing with error messages - redirect users to sign-in flow then continue original command automatically.
• •API-First Development: Use OpenAPI specs with Prism mock server for parallel CLI/API development, enabling rapid iteration without building full backend implementation until contract is finalized.
• •Reentrant Command Architecture: Design CLI commands to detect previous state and resume where stopped, allowing users to run same setup command multiple times without duplicating completed steps.