cli-review-runner

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5 scripts

Use this skill whenever reviewing, auditing, or grading a command-line tool for agent-friendliness - it runs a black-box test suite against a target CLI and reports per-rule pass/fail from the cli-for-agents 45-rule catalog. Trigger even if the user doesn't explicitly say "agent-friendly" - apply whenever they ask "is mycli good for agents?", "review this CLI", "grade my cli against the rules", "check if this tool is safe to automate", or "audit command-line design". Companion to the cli-for-agents distillation skill.

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Sourcepproenca/dot-skills
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NPX Install

npx skill4agent add pproenca/dot-skills cli-review-runner

Tags

Translated version includes tags in frontmatter
cli-auditagent-friendly-testingblack-box-testcommand-line-toolautomation-readiness

SKILL.md Content

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cli-review-runner

Automates the 10-item agent-friendliness audit from cli-for-agents. Runs black-box probes against a target CLI and emits a structured report mapping each finding to a rule ID (e.g., 
help-examples-in-help
, 
err-non-zero-exit-codes
, 
safe-dry-run-flag
). Default mode is read-only - probes never run destructive verbs with real arguments.

When to Apply

  • User asks to review or audit a CLI for agent-friendliness, automation readiness, or CI use
  • User has just finished building a CLI and wants a pre-ship sanity check
  • User is grading their own or a third-party CLI against the cli-for-agents catalog
  • User is asking why a CLI is hanging an agent, blowing up context, or failing to compose in a pipeline
  • PR review for a CLI change - quickly regress-test the 
    --help
    , errors, and dry-run flags

How to Use

The skill is orchestrated by 
scripts/review.sh
. Point it at the target CLI (absolute path or PATH-resolvable name) and pick an output format.
bash
# Default: text table on stdout, exit 0 if all passed, 1 if any failed
bash scripts/review.sh --target /usr/local/bin/mycli

# Machine-readable output
bash scripts/review.sh --target gh --format json
bash scripts/review.sh --target kubectl --format ndjson

# Supply subcommand list when auto-discovery misses them
bash scripts/review.sh --target gh --subcommands pr,issue,repo

# Preview what would run without touching the target CLI
bash scripts/review.sh --target mycli --dry-run

# Include risky probes on destructive verbs (off by default)
bash scripts/review.sh --target mycli --include-destructive
See 
bash scripts/review.sh --help
for the full flag list.

Workflow Overview

--target <cli>
   │
   ▼
[1] Validate target       fail fast if path missing or not executable
   │
   ▼
[2] Load rule catalog     references/rule-catalog.tsv (45 rules)
   │
   ▼
[3] Discover subcommands  parse top-level --help (gh/kubectl/commander shapes)
   │
   ▼
[4] Run probes P1..P10    each probe emits NDJSON findings to a temp file
   │
   ▼
[5] Render report         scripts/render.sh  ->  text | json | ndjson
Read references/workflow.md when you need the full probe-by-probe breakdown, failure modes, and how to extend the catalog.

Probe Coverage

ProbeRules testedCoverage
P1 Non-interactive
interact-no-hang-on-stdin
, 
interact-no-input-flag
, 
interact-flags-first
, 
interact-detect-tty
, 
interact-no-timed-prompts
, 
interact-no-arrow-menus
, 
input-no-prompt-fallback
Run under 
</dev/null
with timeout; inspect help for interactive language
P2 Layered help
help-per-subcommand
, 
help-no-flag-required
, 
help-layered-discovery
Top-level line count; per-subcommand 
--help
; zero-arg invocation
P3 Help examples
help-examples-in-help
, 
help-flag-summary
, 
help-suggest-next-steps
Grep each subcommand help for 
Examples:
, short+long flag pairs, "See also"
P4 Actionable errors
err-actionable-fix
, 
err-include-example-invocation
, 
err-exit-fast-on-missing-required
, 
err-no-stack-traces-by-default
Invoke with bogus flag; grep stderr for fix + example; check for raw stack traces
P5 stderr channeling
err-stderr-not-stdout
Error text must land on fd 2
P6 Exit codes
err-non-zero-exit-codes
Usage error and runtime error must produce distinct non-zero codes
P7 stdin composition
input-accept-stdin-dash
, 
input-flags-over-positional
Grep help for 
-
stdin convention; count positionals vs flags
P8 Structured output
output-json-flag
, 
output-respect-no-color
--json
produces JSON; 
NO_COLOR=1
suppresses ANSI
P9 Destructive safety
safe-dry-run-flag
, 
safe-force-bypass-flag
, 
safe-no-prompts-with-no-input
Inspect destructive verbs' 
--help
for 
--dry-run
/ 
--yes
/ 
--force
/ 
--no-input
P10 Command structure
struct-resource-verb
, 
struct-standard-flag-names
, 
struct-no-hidden-subcommand-catchall
, 
struct-flag-order-independent
Uniform shape, 
--help
/
--version
present, unknown subcommand errors, flag position independence
Coverage: 30 of the 45 rules in cli-for-agents are black-box testable. The remaining 15 (idempotency, state reconciliation, NDJSON streaming, bounded output, crash-only recovery, env-var fallback, secret-stdin, confirm-by-typing-name) require either real invocation or source-code inspection - the report lists them as "manual review required".

Configuration

config.json
stores the verb classifier lists and default timeout. The skill works without any setup - defaults are reasonable. Override per-invocation via flags or edit the file for project-wide changes.
json
{
  "timeout_seconds": 5,
  "safe_verbs": ["list", "get", "show", "status", "describe", "help", "version", "config", "ls", "inspect"],
  "destructive_verbs": ["delete", "drop", "destroy", "remove", "reset", "purge", "rm", "del"]
}

Safety Model

All probes are read-only by default:
  • Safe verbs (list, get, show, ...) may be invoked with bogus flags to test error handling
  • Destructive verbs (delete, drop, ...) are ONLY inspected via 
    --help
    - never executed with arguments
  • Every probe runs with a 5-second wall-clock timeout under 
    </dev/null
  • The target CLI is sandboxed to its own process; no shell metacharacters in arguments
When 
--include-destructive
is passed, probes may invoke destructive verbs with bogus flags too. This exposes the rare case where a CLI does something destructive before validating flags. Only enable this against CLIs you trust, or in a disposable test environment.

Self-test

Before shipping changes to probes, run the self-test - it generates a mock CLI that deliberately violates specific rules and asserts the probes detect them:
bash
bash scripts/selftest.sh
Expected output: 
Results: 8 passed, 0 failed
. Any failure points at a regression in 
scripts/lib/probes.sh
.

Files

FilePurpose
scripts/review.shMain entry point - orchestrates probes, renders the report
scripts/render.shOutput formatter: text / json / ndjson
scripts/selftest.shSanity check against a deliberately-buggy mock CLI
scripts/lib/common.shShared helpers: timeout, verb classifier, JSON escape, catalog loader
scripts/lib/probes.shProbe functions 
probe_p1..probe_p10
references/rule-catalog.tsv45 rules from cli-for-agents, mapped to probes
references/workflow.mdDetailed probe-by-probe methodology, failure modes, extension guide
gotchas.mdKnown edge cases discovered during use
config.jsonVerb classifier lists and default timeout

Related Skills

  • cli-for-agents - the 45-rule design catalog this skill audits against. Read rule files there when the report flags an issue and you need the full explanation.