A Node CLI program example

README.md

Node CLI Program to Execute Standalone Node Script

The following file(s) aim to display a pattern of node script development.
In this pattern the CLI program is built to execute the standalone node script.

Writing Node Scripts

1. It is a common pattern to write a script.
2. It is a common pattern to write a CLI program to run a script.

Desires

1. I want to easily write CLI programs to execute a node script
2. I want that CLI program to be easily unit tested based on its options, not the script it runs! 🎉

Directory Structure

Directory structure of the script

flowchart LR
A(src/);
A --> B(program.ts: cli script runner);
A --> C(script.ts: node script);
A --> D(tests/);
D --> E(program.test.ts: tests program);
D --> F(script.test.ts: tests script);

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Developer Ergonomics

Options to execute the script

flowchart LR
A(node script);
A --> B(execute script via CLI);
A --> C(execute script via LAMBDA Handler);
A --> D(execute script in other node application);

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---

Summary

The charts aboves diagrams a node script which works on it's own but can be executed in multiple formats.

The example-program.ts file below displays how the CLI portion of Developer Ergonomics (Ref 2nd diagram) can execute the script and provide options to easily unit test it.

See stdoutToJSON for more detail.

example-program.ts

#!/usr/bin/env node
const { program } = require("commander");
const { cosmiconfigSync } = require("cosmiconfig");
const { script } = require("./script");
import { Options } from "./types";
const version = "VERSION";

/** 
  * Below is an example of a Node CLI program. 
  * The program's action function accepts an "options" argument, 
  * which informs the function's behavior. 
  * Code comments within the action function specifiy how unit tests 
  * can be written to ensure that each option is respected correctly.
  * --
  * Directory structure:
  * src/
  *  __tests__
  *   - program.test.ts // tests the CLI program options argument unrelated to the script
  *   - script.test.ts // tests the script unrelated to the CLI program
  *  - program.ts
  *  - script.ts
  */

// used to grab a config file for the Node CLI program to read from 
const explorer = cosmiconfigSync("config");

/**
 * action
 * @param {Name} string
 * @param {Org} string
 * @param {Options} options 
 */
export function action(name, org, options: Options = {}): void {
  /**
    * our CLI unit tests should now test the config and that it can be accessed via an option or via cosmiconfig (a config finder)
    * if option.config is defined, that should take presedence
    * if option.config is defined, it should have x, y, z contents
    * if defaultConfig is defined (via cosmiconfig), it should not be an empty object
    * if the defaultConfig is defined, it should x,y,z contents
    */
  const { config: defaultConfig = {} } = options?.config
    ? explorer.load(options.config)
    : explorer.search() || {};

  /** 
   * our CLI unit tests should now test which urls are loaded
   * if option.url is defined, that should take presedence over the defaultConfig.urls or the URLS constant
   * if defaultConfig.url is defined, that should take presedence over the URLS constant
   */   
  const urls = options?.urls || defaultConfig?.urls || URLS;
  
  /**
    * by exiting via the options.isTestingCLI, 
    * we should now test the options as listed in the scenerios above
    */
  if (options.isTestingCLI) {
    /**
      * the console.info log provides a mechanism 
      * to print stdout (standard output) to the terminal for executed child process
      * a tool called stdoutJSON (soon stdoutToJSON) can be used to convert the stdout back the parsable JSON
      * https://github.com/yowainwright/stdoutJSON
      */
    console.info({ options, urls, cookies, segmentRequest });
    return;
  }
  /**
    * The script function is tested seperately in separate unit tests in a separate file
    * AKA the UI test scenerios above should only test the CLI program's options and config 
    */
  script({ options, name, org }); 
}

program 
  .version(version) 
  .description("tests cli") 
  .option("-u, --urls [urls...]", "urls to run scripts on") 
  .option("-c, --config <config>", "config file to use") 
  .option("-t, --isTestingCLI", "enables CLI testing, no scripts are run") 
  .action(action) 
  .parse(process.argv);