# arcanis/clipanion

Type-safe CLI library / framework with no runtime dependencies

Repository: https://github.com/arcanis/clipanion
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/clipanion
Homepage: https://mael.dev/clipanion/
Language: TypeScript
License Family: other
Topics: typescript, cli
Last push: 2024-09-06T09:16:49+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3433, "days_push": 726, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1256, forks 69 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:08.986309+00:00)

## What it is
Clipanion is a type-safe CLI framework for TypeScript and JavaScript with no runtime dependencies. It supports nested commands, advanced option types, automatic help generation, and compiles commands into an optimized state machine; it powers Yarn.

## Use cases
- build a type-safe cli in typescript
- parse command-line arguments with full type inference
- create nested subcommands like yarn workspaces list
- generate help pages for a node cli
- proxy options to nested commands without --
- validate cli option arguments

## When to choose
- you're building a TypeScript/Node.js CLI and want type-safe options with no duplicated types
- you need nested subcommands, option proxying, or rich option types (negations, counters, arrays)
- you want polished auto-generated help output and battle-tested parsing (used by Yarn)

## When to avoid
- you need a CLI framework in a language other than JavaScript/TypeScript
- you want a minimal argument parser with a tiny API rather than a full class-based framework
- you need a stable released version and can't accept release-candidate versions (v4 is at rc stage)

## Facets
- artifact type: framework
- maturity: stable
- function: cli, parser, web-framework
- domain: developer-tools, web-development
- platform: cli, cross-platform
- tags: typescript, argument-parsing, type-safe, subcommands, help-generation, zero-dependencies, command-line, nodejs

## Member repositories
- arcanis/clipanion (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:08.986309+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 2026-08-30T05:07:15.623497+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/arcanis/clipanion (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:08.986309+00:00, sha 2bffb4c3b8e2)
  - homepage: https://mael.dev/clipanion/ (fetched 2026-08-29T12:17:40.526184+00:00, sha 502d396ca22f)
  - site_page: https://mael.dev/clipanion/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T12:17:40.535146+00:00, sha 078a98a51433)
  - site_page: https://mael.dev/clipanion/docs/getting-started (fetched 2026-08-29T12:17:40.537014+00:00, sha 20d53d5e3df3)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/clipanion (fetched 2026-08-29T12:17:40.538769+00:00, sha 7a428933cf20)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.