This is a step by step explainer from Stream on building a CLI tool — including detailed explanations on their choices.

If you’re setting out to build a highly usable developer tool, it goes without saying that a proper CLI to interface with your API is paramount. As Zeit and Heroku have been setting the tone for these types of developer tools by doing extensive research into best practices when it comes to a command line “experience”, we started our quest by digging into their findings.

Since the Stream CLI is currently in public beta, the methods and philosophies we found from our research, as well as those we unearthed ourselves are fresh in our minds and we wanted to take a few minutes to outline what we found to be best practices among other CLI tools and developers’ needs when it comes to building a proper CLI.