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Tome

Turn directories of shell scripts into full-blown CLIs.

demo of tome

What is Tome?

Tome provides easy organization and execution of collections of command line scripts.

With a directory of scripts like this:

root/
  go-to-workspace
  android/
    debug
  python/
    start-virtualenv
  work/
    start-my-server
    my-team/
      provision-my-service

Tome allows for executing them like:

$ my-command go-to-workspace
$ my-command android debug
$ my-command work start-my-server
$ my-command work my-team provision-my-service
# print a list of all commands and usage
$ my-command

And add in some features for discoverability:

tab-completion
search all available commands (just enter your command with no arguments)
help commands

More documentation can be found at readthedocs.

Source code is on GitHub.

Why?

Everyone has their own way of sharing scripts with each other. In my experience it usually comes down to a git repo and prepending things to the path.

This works well for a small group, but once you're trying to share scripts across a larger organization, issues arise:

discoverability: how do I see what already exists?
namespacing: how do I find commands that relate to what I'm working on?
completion: It's nice

Prior Art & Inspiration

https://github.com/basecamp/sub

Quickstart

Create a directory with all of your favorite scripts.
Download the binary for your platform of choice from the releases.
Add init command to your shell init: ie for zsh add to ~/.zshrc:

eval "$(tome init my-commands ~/my-scripts zsh)"

spawn a new shell (or run the eval above) and try my-commands help

You may want to shorten my-commands to something that is a lot easier to type, like a single character (e.g. s or t).

Getting Started

1. Download Tome

Tome is provided as self-encapsulated, broadly compatible binaries. Choose the latest binary that's appropriate for your OS at the Github releases page.

Download it into a well known, persistent location. A recommendedation is in your home directory, such as $HOME/bin/tome

2. Create Your Shell Scripts

Create a nested hierarchy of shell (or whatever) scripts:

root/
  go-to-workspace
  android/
    debug
  work/
    start-my-server
    my-team/
      provision-my-service

(keeping these in version control is recommended)

Put them in a well known, persistent location as well (e.g. ~/my-scripts).

3. Put The Initialization Code in your .rc file

If you want your top-level command to be named "my-commands" you'd put the following in your .bashrc or .zshrc:

# posix example, e.g. .bashrc
eval "$(tome init my-commands ~/my-scripts bash)"

# zsh
eval "$(tome init my-commands ~/my-scripts zsh)"

For fish shell:

# in ~/.config/fish/conf.d/tome.fish
tome init my-commands ~/my_script_dir fish | source

NOTE: make sure to include the double quotes with the nested backticks. This ensures that newlines are captured and evaluated appropriately.

4. Start a New Shell

Once installed, start a new shell and you should have your new command!

Developing Tome

See CONTRIBUTING.md