Random Tips

Improve discoverability by occasionally surfacing tips to users during normal CLI usage.

Basic Usage

Use a Meta App to display a random tip after each command invocation. This keeps tip logic in one place rather than repeating it in every command.

import random
import sys
from typing import Annotated

from cyclopts import App, Parameter

app = App()

tips = [
    "Use 'my-app config --help' to see all configuration options.",
    "Set the MY_APP_DEBUG=1 environment variable for verbose output.",
    "Commands can be abbreviated: 'my-app d' matches 'my-app deploy'.",
    "Suppress tips by setting MY_APP_NO_TIPS=1.",
]


@app.command
def build():
    """Build the project."""
    print("Building...")


@app.command
def deploy():
    """Deploy the project."""
    print("Deploying...")


@app.meta.default
def launcher(
    *tokens: Annotated[str, Parameter(show=False, allow_leading_hyphen=True)],
    no_tips: Annotated[bool, Parameter(env_var="MY_APP_NO_TIPS", negative="")] = False,
):
    app(tokens)
    if not no_tips and random.random() < 0.3:
        print(f"\n💡 Tip: {random.choice(tips)}", file=sys.stderr)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.meta()

$ python my-app.py build
Building...

💡 Tip: Set the MY_APP_DEBUG=1 environment variable for verbose output.

$ MY_APP_NO_TIPS=1 python my-app.py build
Building...