sota-cli-ux SKILL.md skillA
sota-cli-ux from martinholovsky/sota-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add martinholovsky/sota-skills/sota-cli-ux@git:20261012.ae1b29bPins git:20261012.ae1b29b in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- martinholovsky/sota-skills
- Path
skills/sota-cli-ux/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 5
- Latest version
- git:20261012.ae1b29b, committed Oct 12, 2026
- First version recorded
- Jun 17, 2026
- Size
- 9,921 bytes
- Repository stars
- 23
- License
- CC-BY-4.0
State-of-the-art CLI and developer-tool UX guidance (2026) covering command and flag design, output and interaction (stdout/stderr, --json, TTY detection, exit codes, prompts), runtime behavior and lifecycle (signals, dry-run, idempotency, XDG paths, completions, telemetry), and distribution (packaging, checksums, docs). Use when designing or building any command line tool, subcommand, TUI, or developer tool — in any framework (argparse, click, typer, clap, cobra, oclif, commander) — AND when…
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# SOTA CLI & Developer-Tool UX ## Purpose Expert-level rules for building and auditing command-line tools: the grammar of commands/flags/args, config layering, human-vs-machine output, TTY-aware interaction, exit codes, signal handling, lifecycle behavior, and distribution. The core thesis: **a CLI has three users — a human at a TTY, a script in CI, and an AI agent driving the tool (a stricter script) — and every design decision must serve all three without flags-gymnastics.** Rules are imperative with rationale and good/bad terminal examples; every rules file ends with an audit checklist. Load only the files relevant to the task via the index below. ## BUILD mode When designing or implementing a CLI: 1. **Design the command grammar before writing code.** Write the `--help` text first: subcommand tree, every flag (short + long), args, examples. If the help is hard to write, the grammar is wrong ([`rules/01`](rules/01-commands-flags-config.md)). 2. **Defaults carry the common path.** A new user must get a useful result with zero flags. Anything required for the 80% case is a design bug ([`rules/01`](rules/01-commands-flags-config.md) §3). …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add martinholovsky/sota-skills/sota-cli-ux@sha256:ae30ec888e04eb40The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20261012.ae1b29b, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_7rjqmfn6r5xlyemp)
4 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 5 versions of this file, between Jun 17, 2026 and Oct 12, 2026, about one every 29 days.
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git:20261012.ae1b29b latest | 2026-10-12 | ae1b29b | 9,921 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260820.7720f5a | 2026-08-20 | 7720f5a | 9,089 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260716.e4afc80 | 2026-07-16 | e4afc80 | 9,038 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260708.1a1eff6 | 2026-07-08 | 1a1eff6 | 8,961 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260617.c5d2c7b | 2026-06-17 | c5d2c7b | 8,794 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (9921 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
martinholovsky/sota-skills · 23 stars · license CC-BY-4.0 · pushed 2026-10-21 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_7rjqmfn6r5xlyemp GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=martinholovsky/sota-skills/sota-cli-ux GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/ae30ec888e04eb4002f3e2c45b0ab2b0c418e82534b502a9b0a5634a7a0d2dae
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.