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Ace commands

Ace is a powerful command line tool crafted for AdonisJs. So far you have been using lots of ace commands to generate controllers, models, or to run migrations.

In this guide, we learn about the internals of Ace and how to create commands.

Introduction

Every AdonisJs project has an ace file in the project root, which is a regular Javascript file but without the .js extension.

The ace file is used to execute project specific commands, and for reusable commands, you must bundle them as npm packages.

Let’s run the following code to see the list of available commands.

node ace

Output

Usage:
  command [arguments] [options]

Global Options:
  --env                Set NODE_ENV before running the commands
  --no-ansi            Disable colored output

Available Commands:
  seed                 Seed database using seed files
 migration
  migration:refresh    Refresh migrations by performing rollback and then running from start
  migration:reset      Rollback migration to the first batch
  migration:rollback   Rollback migration to latest batch or a specific batch number
  migration:run        Run all pending migrations
  migration:status     Check migrations current status
For convenience, the adonis command proxies all the commands for a given project.
For example running adonis migration:run has the same result as running node ace migration:run.

Creating commands

Let’s quickly build a command to pull random quotes of Paul Graham using wisdom API and display it on the terminal.

Setup

adonis make:command Quote

Follow the output instructions and register the command inside the commands array in start/app.js file.

✔ create  app/Commands/Quote.js
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│        Register command as follows                        │
│                                                           │
│        1. Open start/app.js                               │
│        2. Add App/Commands/Quote to commands array        │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Now, if we run adonis, we should see the quote command inside the list of available commands.

Showing quotes

Let’s replace everything inside the command file with the following code.

Make sure to install got from npm. It is used to consume the HTTP API.
'use strict'

const { Command } = use('@adonisjs/ace')
const got = use('got')

class Quote extends Command {
  static get signature () {
    return 'quote'
  }

  static get description () {
    return 'Shows inspirational quote from Paul Graham'
  }

  async handle (args, options) {
    const response = await got('https://wisdomapi.herokuapp.com/v1/author/paulg/random')
    const quote = JSON.parse(response.body)
    console.log(`${this.chalk.gray(quote.author.name)} - ${this.chalk.cyan(quote.author.company)}`)
    console.log(`${quote.content}`)
  }
}

module.exports = Quote

Running adonis quote prints the quote from the terminal.

Command signature

The command signature defines the command name, required/optional options and flags. The signature is defined as an expression string.

static get signature () {
  return 'greet { name: Name of the user to greet }'
}
  1. In above signature greet is the command name

  2. The { name } is the required argument to be passed when running the command.

  3. Everything after the : is the description of the argument.

The command signature can in multiple lines using the ES6 template literals.

static get signature () {
  return `
    greet
    { name : Name of the user to greet }
    { age? : User age }
  `
}

Optional arguments

The arguments can be optional by passing ? to the name.

'greet { name? : Name of the user to greet }'

Default value

You can also define default value for an argument

'greet { name?=virk : Name of the user to greet }'

Flags

The flags are prefixed with -- and has the same signature as arguments

static get signature () {
  return `
    send:email
    { --log : Log email response to the console }
  `
}

When running the command, we can pass the --log as follows.

adonis send:email --log

Flags with values

At times you may want to accept values with flags, same can be done by tweaking the expression as follows.

static get signature () {
  return `
    send:email
    { --driver=@value : Define a custom driver to be used  }
  `
}

The =@value instructs ace to make sure a value is always passed to the --driver flag.

Command action

The handle method on the command class is invoked every time command is executed. It receives an object of arguments and flags.

All arguments and flags are passed in camel case format. For example --file-path flag is set as filePath key inside the object.
async handle (args, flags) {
  console.log(args)
  console.log(flags)
}

Questions

Within your command, you can prompt users and accept values by asking interactive questions.

ask(question, [defaultAnswer])

Prompt for free text question.

async handle () {
  const name = await this
    .ask('Enter project name')

  // with default answer
  const name = await this
    .ask('Enter project name', 'yardstick')
}

confirm(question)

Prompt user for a Yes/no question.

const deleteFiles = await this
  .confirm('Are you sure you want to delete selected files?')

secure(question, [defaultAnswer])

Prompt user for a secure input like a password or some secret.

const password = await this
  .secure('What is your password?')

multiple(title, choices, [selected])

Prompt for a multiple choice question

const lunch = await this
  .multiple('Friday lunch ( 2 per person )', [
    'Roasted vegetable lasagna',
    'Vegetable & feta cheese filo pie',
    'Roasted Cauliflower + Aubergine'
  ])

The options can also be an object.

const lunch = await this
  .multiple('Friday lunch ( 2 per person )', [
    {
      name: 'Roasted Cauliflower + Aubergine',
      value: 'no 1'
    },
    {
      name: 'Carrot + Tabbouleh',
      value: 'no 2'
    }
  ])

Also, you can pass an array of pre selected values

const lunch = await this
  .multiple('Friday lunch ( 2 per person )', [
    'Roasted vegetable lasagna',
    'Vegetable & feta cheese filo pie',
    'Roasted Cauliflower + Aubergine'
  ], [
    'Roasted vegetable lasagna.'
  ])

choice(question, choices, [selected])

choose one value from a list of options.

const client = await this
  .choice('Client to use for installing dependencies', [
    'yarn', 'npm'
  ])

Also can also be an object

const client = await this
  .choice('Client to use for installing dependencies', [
    {
      name: 'Use yarn',
      value: 'yarn'
    },
    {
      name: 'Use npm',
      value: 'npm'
    }
  ])

Also, you can pre select one of the available options.

const client = await this
  .choice('Client to use for installing dependencies', [
    {
      name: 'Use yarn',
      value: 'yarn'
    },
    {
      name: 'Use npm',
      value: 'npm'
    }
  ], 'npm')

openEditor(question, [defaultValue])

Open default editor and get value on editor window exits

const message = this
  .openEditor('Enter commit message')

Colorful logs

Ace uses chalk to output colorful messages on the terminal, you can access the instance of chalk as this.chalk.

Also, there are some helper methods to log consistently styled messages.

error(message)

Log error message to stderr in red color.

this.error('Something went bad')

info(message)

Log info message to stdout in cyan color.

this.info('Something worth sharing')

warn(message)

Log message in yellow color

this.warn('Fire in the hole')

success(message)

Log message in green color

this.success('All went fine')

completed(action, message)

Mark an action as completed

this.completed('create', 'config/app.js')

failed(action, message)

Unable to complete an action

this.failed('create', 'config/app.js')

table(head, body)

Print tabular data

const head = ['Name', 'Age']
const body = [['virk', 22], ['joe', 23]]

this.table(head, body)

Also, you can define the head row color.

const head = ['Name', 'Age']
const body = [['virk', 22], ['joe', 23]]
const options = { head: ['red'] }

this.table(head, body, options)

icon(type)

Print icon for one of the following types.

Icon Name

info

success

warn

error

console.log(`${this.icon('success')} Completed`)

File management

Ace makes it simple to interact with the file system by offering Promise first API.

writeFile(location, contents)

Write file to a given location. Missing directories are created automatically.

await this.writeFile(Helpers.appRoot('Models/User.js'))

ensureFile(location)

Ensure file exists at a given location, otherwise an empty file is created.

await this.ensureFile(Helpers.appRoot('Models/User.js'))

ensureDir(location)

Ensure directory exists at a given location, otherwise an empty directory is created.

await this.ensureDir(Helpers.appRoot('Models'))

pathExists(location)

Find a path exists or not.

const exists = await this.pathExists('some-location')

if (exists) {
  // do something
}

removeFile(location)

Remove file from a given location

await this.removeFile('some-location')

removeDir(location)

Remove directory from a given location

await this.removeDir('some-location')

readFile(location)

Read contents of a given file

const contents = await this.readFile('some-location', 'utf-8')

copy(src, dest)

Copy file/directory from one location to other

await this.copy(src, dest)

move(src, dest)

Move file/directory from one location to other

await this.move(src, dest)

Database connection management

When you use database access (Lucid or directly), you must remember to manually close the database connection.

Database.close()

A more complete example:

const Database = use('Database')

class Quote extends Command {
  static get signature () {
    return 'quote'
  }

  static get description () {
    return 'Shows inspirational quote from Paul Graham'
  }

  async handle (args, options) {
    let quote = await Quote.query().orderByRaw('rand()').first()
    console.log(quote.content)

    // This is the important line. Without it, the command runner will not exit.
    Database.close()
  }
}