# tj/commander.js

node.js command-line interfaces made easy

Repository: https://github.com/tj/commander.js
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/commanderjs
Language: JavaScript
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-24T04:05:39+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 86/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 62, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5498, "days_push": 9, "days_rel": 96, "gap_med": 107.0, "n_releases_24m": 7}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 28375, forks 1770 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:48.296409+00:00)

## What it is
Commander.js is a widely-used Node.js library for building command-line interfaces, providing option and argument parsing, subcommands, and automated help generation. It is the de facto standard CLI framework in the JavaScript ecosystem.

## Use cases
- build a cli tool in node.js
- parse command-line arguments and options
- add subcommands to a cli app
- generate help text automatically
- create a cli with required and variadic options

## When to choose
- you are building a CLI in Node.js and want a mature, battle-tested parser
- you need subcommands, option validation, and auto-generated help out of the box
- you want TypeScript support and a huge ecosystem of examples

## When to avoid
- you are building CLIs in Python, Go, or Rust rather than JavaScript
- you need a full interactive terminal UI rather than argument parsing
- you want zero dependencies in a browser-only project

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: cli, parser, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, backend
- platform: cli, cross-platform
- tags: argument-parsing, option-parsing, subcommands, help-generation, typescript-support, command-line, nodejs

## Member repositories
- tj/commander.js (main) score 86

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:48.296409+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 2026-08-29T16:54:23.892669+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/tj/commander.js (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:48.296409+00:00, sha 468b2ed476b9)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.