What problem does it solve?
Kotlin CLI development often involves boilerplate for parsing flags, options, and subcommands, along with ensuring type-safe conversion and helpful usage messages. Clikt provides a Kotlin-centric approach to define and validate CLI interfaces, reducing boilerplate and improving reliability.
Core Features & Use Cases
- Declarative command definitions using CliktCommand, option() and argument() with built-in converters for common types.
- Subcommands, contexts, and testing hooks to build composable, testable CLIs and interactive prompts where needed.
- Use Case: build a small tool that accepts flags, validates input, and prints structured results, or develop a complex CLI with nested subcommands and explicit usage messages.
Quick Start
Create a Kotlin CLI by subclassing CliktCommand and invoking main(args) to parse options.