Organize your command life

I made Kut to boost CLI productivity by organizing frequently used commands. I recently put lots of work into it and I am looking for testers / contributors / critiques!

Github: https://github.com/bettercallshao/kut

Kut reads from a repository of YAMLs of templated commands, and enables the user to render and execute the commands with arguments provided at run-time. It can help to

• Avoid re-typing long commands over and over for routine tasks.
• Version control and share commands.

Installation

Linux & Mac through Homebrew.

brew install bettercallshao/tap/kut

Windows through Scoop.

scoop bucket add bettercallshao https://github.com/bettercallshao/scoop-bucket
scoop install bettercallshao/kut

Or download latest zip from releases, extract, and put the binary files on your system path.

Quick start

Kick start by ingesting the demo menus.

kut i -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bettercallshao/kut-menus/master/python-demo.yaml
kut i -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bettercallshao/kut-menus/master/developer-demo.yaml

See a list of commands by running kut h.

NAME:
   kut - Run commands easily.

USAGE:
   kut [global options] command [command options] [arguments...]

VERSION:
   v0.5.2-20201123005537

COMMANDS:
   start, s           Starts executor for a menu
   ingest, i          Ingests menu locally from a source
   developer-demo, d  Developer commands for demo
   python-demo, p     Python commands for demo
   help, h            Shows a list of commands or help for one command

GLOBAL OPTIONS:
   --help, -h     show help (default: false)
   --version, -v  print the version (default: false)

• start, ingest, help, --help, --version are global arguments.
• python-demo and developer-demo are command definitions.

Check what is in python-demo by kut p -h.

NAME:
   kut python-demo - Python commands for demo

USAGE:
   kut python-demo command [command options] [arguments...]

COMMANDS:
   uuid, u                 Generate a UUID
   forex-rate, f           Print forex rates
   mortgage-calculator, m  Calculate mortgage payment
   bit-expander, b         Convert between decimal, hex, and bit representations
   csv-to-markdown, c      Convert a CSV to markdown table
   help, h                 Shows a list of commands or help for one command

OPTIONS:
   --help, -h     show help (default: false)
   --version, -v  print the version (default: false)

Check what forex-rate does with kut p f -h.

NAME:
   kut python-demo forex-rate - Print forex rates

USAGE:
   kut python-demo forex-rate [command options] [arguments...]

OPTIONS:
   --base value, -b value     Base currency (default: "USD")
   --symbols value, -s value  Comma separated currency symbol list (default: "CAD,GBP")
   --dry, -d                  render command but don't run (default: false)
   --help, -h                 show help (default: false)

• --dry, --help are flags defined by kut.
• --base, --symbols are input arguments, with default values.

Lets try EUR to JPY and AUD.

$ kut p f -b EUR -s JPY,AUD
On 2020-11-13
1 EUR can buy 123.88 JPY
1 EUR can buy 1.63 AUD

Use the --dry flag to see what actually ran.

$ kut p f -b EUR -s AUD -d
template: python3 -u -c "
import urllib.request
import urllib.parse
import json

url = 'https://api.exchangeratesapi.io/latest?base={{.base}}&symbols={{.symbols}}'
r = json.load(urllib.request.urlopen(url))

date = r['date']
rates = r['rates']

print(f'On {date}')
print('\n'.join(
  f'1 {{.base}} can buy {rates[symbol]:.2f} {symbol}'
  for symbol in rates
))
"

rendered: python3 -u -c "
import urllib.request
import urllib.parse
import json

url = 'https://api.exchangeratesapi.io/latest?base=EUR&symbols=AUD'
r = json.load(urllib.request.urlopen(url))

date = r['date']
rates = r['rates']

print(f'On {date}')
print('\n'.join(
  f'1 EUR can buy {rates[symbol]:.2f} {symbol}'
  for symbol in rates
))
"

First the command template was printed, then the command rendered with input arguments. The command is defined in $HOME/.kut/menus/python-demo.yaml.

name: python-demo
version: v0.1.0
help: Python commands for demo
actions:
- name: forex-rate
  help: Print forex rates
  template: |
    python3 -u -c "
    import urllib.request
    import urllib.parse
    import json

    url = 'https://api.exchangeratesapi.io/latest?base={{.base}}&symbols={{.symbols}}'
    r = json.load(urllib.request.urlopen(url))

    date = r['date']
    rates = r['rates']

    print(f'On {date}')
    print('\n'.join(
      f'1 {{.base}} can buy {rates[symbol]:.2f} {symbol}'
      for symbol in rates
    ))
    "
  params:
  - name: base
    help: Base currency
    value: USD
  - name: symbols
    help: Comma separated currency symbol list
    value: CAD,GBP

Add to this file or create more YAMLs in $HOME/.kut/menus/ to add more commands.

Web interface

Kut can also be run in conjunction with kutd to give a web based user interface to the menus. Kutd is installed as part of the kut package and runs without arguments.

[kutd] 2020/11/24 01:42:01 version: v0.5.2-20201123005537
[kutd] 2020/11/24 01:42:01 starting kutd ...
[kutd] 2020/11/24 01:42:01 listening on http://127.0.0.1:7171

It is recommended to install kutd as a start up service for convenience with the official helper menus.

For Windows (see help for more commands).

kut i -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bettercallshao/kut-menus/master/windows-kutd.yaml
kut windows-kutd startup-add

For Mac (see help for more commands).

kut i -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bettercallshao/kut-menus/master/mac-kutd.yaml
kut mac-kutd startup-add

Once kutd is running, visit http://127.0.0.1:7171 in browser to find three sections.

• Channels - each channel is a placeholder for a kut executor to connect to. If visited without active connection, it shows a blank message.
• Menus - each available menu can be viewed as a JSON.
• Ingestion - ingesting menus same as kut.

As an example, we will run the csv-to-markdown command in the web interface. First open a terminal (with python3 available) and connect a kut executor to kutd (on channel 0 by default) declaring the python-demo menu.

kut s -m python-demo

Logs are printed and the command should block and occupy the terminal. Now visit channel 0 on the page, click on csv-to-markdown, copy the following into the data param, press execute, then toggle markdown to render it.

Name,Icon,Website
Facebook,[![Website shields.io](https://img.shields.io/website-up-down-green-red/http/shields.io.svg)](),https://facebook.com/
Twitter,[![Website shields.io](https://img.shields.io/website-up-down-green-red/http/shields.io.svg)](),https://twitter.com/home

Develop

To build, install golang and run make. The CI is powered by GoReleaser and CircleCI.

Further info

I wrote a blog series on kut https://bettercallshao.com/tags/kut/

Please contact me via https://bettercallshao.com/author/