# unjs/citty

🌆 Elegant CLI Builder

Repository: https://github.com/unjs/citty
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/citty
Language: TypeScript
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-20T22:25:44+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 85/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 65, longevity 90
- inputs: {"age_days": 1268, "days_push": 13, "days_rel": 154, "gap_med": 35.5, "n_releases_24m": 3}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1306, forks 57 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:18.965212+00:00)

## What it is
Citty is a zero-dependency TypeScript library for building elegant command-line interfaces on Node.js. It provides typed command definitions, nested sub-commands with lazy loading, and auto-generated usage/help output.

## Use cases
- build a cli tool in nodejs
- parse command line arguments with types
- create nested subcommands for a cli
- lazy load cli commands to speed up startup
- auto-generate help and usage text for a cli
- build a typescript cli framework app

## When to choose
- you want a lightweight, zero-dependency CLI builder for Node.js
- you need nested sub-commands with lazy/async loading for large CLIs
- you prefer a typed, composable API with auto-generated usage output

## When to avoid
- you need a full-featured framework with prompts, colors, or interactive UI built in
- you are targeting non-Node.js runtimes or shell-only scripts
- you need battle-tested v1 stability for critical tooling (still pre-1.0)

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: cli, parser, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, web-development
- platform: cli, cross-platform
- tags: cli-builder, argument-parsing, subcommands, zero-dependency, typescript, unjs, command-line, nodejs

## Member repositories
- unjs/citty (main) score 85

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:18.965212+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 2026-08-30T04:50:59.321290+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/unjs/citty (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:18.965212+00:00, sha 78fa4d1f7387)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/citty (fetched 2026-08-29T12:09:02.756883+00:00, sha 75ba8eb92469)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.