# Taywee/args

A header-only C++ argument parser library. Supposed to be flexible and powerful, and attempts to be compatible with the functionality of the Python standard argparse library (though not necessarily the API).

Repository: https://github.com/Taywee/args
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/args
Homepage: http://taywee.github.io/args/
Language: C++
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: args, argument-parsing, cli, cpp, library, argument-parser, command-line, command-line-parser, command-line-parsing, cxx, cpp11
Last push: 2026-08-03T13:28:38+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 96/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 95, release rhythm 94, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3780, "days_push": 30, "days_rel": 42, "gap_med": 3, "n_releases_24m": 12}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1635, forks 183 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:14.538475+00:00)

## What it is
A single-header C++11 argument parsing library inspired by Python's argparse, offering static type checking, nested argument groups, custom types, and automatic help generation. It is feature-complete and maintained only for bug fixes.

## Use cases
- parse command-line flags and options in a C++ program
- generate help output for a CLI tool
- parse positional arguments with type checking
- define mutually required argument groups
- accept custom types as command-line arguments
- replace hand-rolled argv parsing in C++

## When to avoid
- you need robust UTF-8 flag names or normalization
- you need a parser with ongoing feature development
- you need subcommand-heavy CLI frameworks like CLI11 or cxxopts alternatives with richer APIs

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: parser, cli, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, parsers
- platform: cpp, cross-platform
- tags: header-only, argument-parsing, argparse, cpp11, single-header, command-line

## Member repositories
- Taywee/args (main) score 96

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:14.538475+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:46:59.479987+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/Taywee/args (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:14.538475+00:00, sha 1a4429ae3a4b)
  - homepage: http://taywee.github.io/args/ (fetched 2026-08-29T11:19:58.034021+00:00, sha 3bcc9466115c)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.