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Version: v2.8.x LTS

Developing for Zowe CLI

Developing for Zowe CLI

You can extend Zoweâ„¢ CLI by developing plug-ins and contributing code to the base Zowe CLI or existing plug-ins.

How to contribute​

You can contribute to Zowe CLI in the following ways:

  • Add new commands, options, or other improvements to the base CLI.
  • Develop a plug-in that users can install to Zowe CLI.

You might want to contribute to Zowe CLI to accomplish the following objectives:

  • Provide new scriptable functionality for yourself, your organization, or to a broader community.
  • Make use of Zowe CLI infrastructure (profiles and programmatic APIs).
  • Participate in the Zowe CLI community space.

Getting started​

If you want to start working with the code immediately, review the Readme file in the Zowe CLI core repository and the Zowe contribution guidelines. The zowe-cli-sample-plugin GitHub repository is a sample plug-in that adheres to the guidelines for contributing to Zowe CLI projects.

Tutorials​

Follow these tutorials to get started working with the sample plug-in:

  1. Setting up: Clone the project and prepare your local environment.
  2. Installing a plug-in: Install the sample plug-in to Zowe CLI and run as-is.
  3. Extending a plug-in: Extend the sample plug-in with a new by creating a programmatic API, definition, and handler.
  4. Creating a new plug-in: Create a new CLI plug-in that uses Zowe CLI programmatic APIs and a diff package to compare two data sets.
  5. Implementing user profiles: Implement user profiles with the plug-in.

Plug-in development overview​

At a high level, a plug-in must have imperative-framework configuration (sample here). This configuration is discovered by imperative-framework through the package.json imperative key.

A Zowe CLI plug-in will minimally contain the following:

  1. Programmatic API: Node.js programmatic APIs to be called by your handler or other Node.js applications.
  2. Command definition: The syntax definition for your command.
  3. Handler implementation: To invoke your programmatic API to display information in the format that you defined in the definition.

The following guidelines and documentation will assist you during development:

Imperative CLI Framework documentation​

Imperative CLI Framework documentation is a key source of information to learn about the features of Imperative CLI Framework (the code framework that you use to build plug-ins for Zowe CLI). Refer to these supplementary documents during development to learn about specific features such as:

  • Auto-generated help
  • JSON responses
  • User profiles
  • Logging, progress bars, experimental commands, and more!

Contribution guidelines​

The Zowe CLI contribution guidelines contain standards and conventions for developing Zowe CLI plug-ins.

The guidelines contain critical information about working with the code, running/writing/maintaining automated tests, developing consistent syntax in your plug-in, and ensuring that your plug-in integrates with Zowe CLI properly:

For more information about ...See:
General guidelines that apply to contributing to Zowe CLI and Plug-insContribution Guidelines
Conventions and best practices for creating packages and plug-ins for Zowe CLIPackage and Plug-in Guidelines
Guidelines for running tests on Zowe CLITesting Guidelines
Guidelines for running tests on the plug-ins that you buildPlug-in Testing Guidelines
Versioning conventions for Zowe CLI and Plug-insVersioning Guidelines