Interactive Pipe To: The Node.js cli interactive workflow
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ipt (pronounced iPipeTo) introduces the missing cli interactive workflow. It takes any kind of list as an input and uses that list to build an interactive interface to let you select an element from it.
Stop manually dragging your mouse around to copy output data from a terminal, using the ipt workflow you can pipe data from a command and select what to copy to clipboard from a convenient visual menu.
Selected data is also output to stdout allowing for easily composing various workflows - Just create your custom alias!
- v2.1.0:
- Added
-D
option for defining a pre-selected item in the list
- Added
- v2.0.0:
- Added
-p
option for extracting path out of selected items - Added
-M
option for customizing interface message - Added
-0
option for better null char compatibility - Added
-S
option for setting number of lines to be displayed - Added a proper programmatic API
- Updated all dependencies to their latest versions
- ipt now requires node@8+
- Added
- v1.1.0: Added autocomplete (or fuzzy finder) mode
ipt -a
iPipeTo is inspired by the Unix Pipeline and is composable with any command line utility you already use and love.
The -m
or --multiple
flag allows you to select many items out of the interactive list instead of the standard "pick one" behavior.
Using -a
or --autocomplete
option switchs the behavior of the interactive list to that of a fuzzysearch (or autocomplete) where options are narrowed as you type.
A convenient option that helps extract file system path values out of the selected item, very useful when manipulating verbose output. Use -p
or --extract-path
options.
The -c
or --copy
option allows you to copy the selected item value to clipboard. Makes for useful workflows where you may need that value somewhere else such as out of the terminal or in a manual command to type later.
Customize your workflow by defining the separator to be used to generate the list (-s
or --separator
options), a custom message to display on the interactive interface (-M
or --message
) and much more. Make sure to take a look at the Help section to learn about all the available options.
Use the -D
or --default
option to determine which item(s) should be selected by default on the interactive list. The -P
or --default-separator
also allows for a custom char to be used to split these items (similar to -s
option).
All you need in order to run ipt is the Node.js runtime and npm, if you have those you're already all set!
The default behavior of ipt is to allow for the selection of one item from the interactive list, once selected this item will be output to stdout, you can also use -c
option to copy the result to your clipboard.
Here we get a simple list of branchs git branch -a
, pipe into ipt
and pipe the selected item value to git checkout
to checkout into the selected branch. xargs
is needed to get the data from standard input and read it as an argument.
In the following example we list all the files from the folder ls
and pipe that list into ipt
only that this time we use the "multiple" flag -m
that allows for selecting multiple items from a list. The selected items get piped to trash
that deletes them.
You can also read a file as source of input data instead of reading from the standard input, here we read from a TODO
file and redirect the selected items to be written in a DONE
file.
Available on npm:
npm install -g ipt
Keep in mind that you'll need the latest Node.js LTS installed!
Showcases some useful predefined workflow scripts for using iPipeTo:
- ntl: Interactive cli menu to list/run npm tasks
- itrash: Selects files to delete from current folder
- git-iadd: Interactive staging of selected changed files
- git-ishow: Choose one git stash item to show
- npmlist: Fuzzy list everything with npm module
Found an awesome workflow idea? Send us a PR to add it here!
Usage:
ipt [options] [<path>]
Options:
-0, --null Uses a null character as separator [boolean]
-a, --autocomplete Starts in autocomplete mode [boolean]
-c, --copy Copy selected item(s) to clipboard [boolean]
-d, --debug Prints to stderr any internal error [boolean]
-D, --default Select a default choices by their name [string]
-P, --default-separator Separator element for default items [string]
-e, --file-encoding Encoding for file <path>, defaults to utf8 [string]
-h, --help Shows this help message [boolean]
-m, --multiple Allows the selection of multiple items [boolean]
-M, --message Replaces interface message [string]
-p, --extract-path Returns only a valid path for each item [boolean]
-s, --separator Separator to to split input into items [string]
-S, --size Amount of lines to display at once [number]
-t, --no-trim Prevents trimming of the result strings [boolean]
-u, --unquoted Force the output to be unquoted [boolean]
-v, --version Show version number [boolean]
iPipeTo should run just fine in any of the Inquirer.js supported terminals:
- Mac OS:
- Terminal.app
- iTerm
- Linux (Ubuntu, openSUSE, Arch Linux, etc):
- gnome-terminal (Terminal GNOME)
- konsole
- Windows*:
- cmd.exe
- Powershell
- Cygwin
Bug fixes / code changes: Please provide tests covering your changes, update docs accordingly and keep your changes to a single commit.
As in any cool idea, iPipeTo is not the only available choice, here are some other cool similar tools found in the wild:
- The iPipeTo logo is a kind contribution from Bruno Magal
MIT © 2019 Ruy Adorno
Are you wondering what can you do or how would you start contributing on the IPT's future? Look at our Roadmap document about the next features