Man Page

cliff can generate Unix man pages in troff format for your CLI tool.

Generating a Man Page

import { generateManPage, printManPage } from '@cliffx/core';

// Generate as a string
const manPage = generateManPage('my-tool', '1.0.0', 'My CLI tool', cli.getCommands());

// Print directly to stdout
printManPage('my-tool', '1.0.0', 'My CLI tool', cli.getCommands());

Adding a man Command

Add a built-in command to your CLI for man page generation:

export default defineCommand({
  name: 'man',
  description: 'Generate man page',
  async run({ cli }) {
    printManPage(
      cli.options.name,
      cli.options.version,
      cli.options.description,
      cli.getCommands(),
    );
  },
});

Then pipe it to the man directory:

my-tool man > /usr/local/share/man/man1/my-tool.1
man my-tool

Man Page Structure

The generated man page includes:

• NAME — CLI name and description
• SYNOPSIS — usage pattern
• DESCRIPTION — from createCli description
• COMMANDS — all registered commands with their options
• GLOBAL OPTIONS — --help, --version, --debug
• SEE ALSO — references to related tools

Format

The output is standard troff format, compatible with the man command on macOS, Linux, and other Unix systems.