Prohelp: Progressive CLI Help

Progressive & Professional Help CLI Interceptor and Library.
Explore the docs

Report Bug · Request Feature

About The Project

The standard command-line help interface (--help or help) is broken. It dumps massive walls of unreadable text — and shell help refuses to cover PATH binaries.

Prohelp is a progressive help specification and reference library: a professional-grade, budget-enforced terminal documentation system with Unicode box panels, locale-aware rendering, and an optional full-screen TUI. It also installs a shell help function (bash/zsh/fish/nu/pwsh — not cmd) that keeps builtin help for builtins and routes PATH topics through prohelp/man/info.

Docs for the wrapper: https://openshellorg.github.io/prohelp/shell-help.html

Prohelp is not a full command-line application framework. It solves progressive help only. For building CLI tools, use a framework and wire Prohelp in.

(back to top)

Installation

Prerequisites

• D Compiler (DMD or LDC)

• DUB (D Package Manager)

Build

dub build -c executable

(back to top)

Usage

CLI usage

prohelp
prohelp ?
prohelp ?:i

Preview mode (schema interpreter)

prohelp examples/tar.sdl ?
prohelp examples/tar.sdl ? operations
prohelp -f myapp/help.sdl ?:de,i

Author a schema

prohelp init --name myapp          # writes help.sdl immediately
prohelp fill                       # questionnaire (or init --fill)
prohelp check                      # report empty / weak fields
prohelp check --strict             # fail for CI
prohelp help.sdl ?

Downstream repos opt into the ship gate:

jobs:
  prohelp:
    uses: openshellorg/prohelp/.github/workflows/check-schema.yml@main
    with:
      schema-path: help.sdl
      strict: true

Shell help wrapper (recommended)

prohelp wrapper install          # bash/zsh/fish/nu/pwsh — not cmd
prohelp wrapper status
# reload shell, then:
help tar

Drop-in intercept (library)

import prohelp.intercept;

void main(string[] args) {
    if (prohelp.intercept(args)) return;
    // Your CLI framework or hand-rolled parser continues here...
}

(back to top)

Key Features

• Default Static Box Zoning: Generates gorgeous, Unicode-boxed information panels compatible with pipes, redirects, and log files.

• Opt-in TUI Viewport: Full-screen terminal browser with filter search and keyboard navigation.

• 1-Line Integration API: Drop into standard application main entries with a single line of code.

• Hierarchical Globbing (*): Subtree glob extraction for targeted documentation chunks.

• Multilingual Localization: Native OS locale auto-detection with explicit overrides.

• Sliding-scale Line Budgets: Enforces strict screen boundaries during development.

• Authoring loop: prohelp init writes a shaped help.sdl; prohelp fill is the questionnaire; prohelp check --strict is the CI ship gate (reusable workflow included).

See Changelog.

License

Prohelp is licensed under the Prohelp Copyleft and Disclosure License (PCDL) Version 1.0.

(back to top)

Contact

Open Shell Org — openshell@devcentr.org

• Project: https://github.com/openshellorg/prohelp

• Site: https://openshellorg.github.io

(back to top)