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Concepts
Cobra is built on a structure of commands, arguments & flags.
Commands represent actions, Args are things and Flags are modifiers for those actions.
The best applications read like sentences when used, and as a result, users intuitively know how to interact with them.
The pattern to follow is
APPNAME VERB NOUN --ADJECTIVE.
or
APPNAME COMMAND ARG --FLAG
A few good real world examples may better illustrate this point.
In the following example, 'server' is a command, and 'port' is a flag:
hugo server --port=1313
In this command we are telling Git to clone the url bare.
git clone URL --bare
Commands
Command is the central point of the application. Each interaction that the application supports will be contained in a Command. A command can have children commands and optionally run an action.
In the example above, 'server' is the command.
Flags
A flag is a way to modify the behavior of a command. Cobra supports fully POSIX-compliant flags as well as the Go flag package. A Cobra command can define flags that persist through to children commands and flags that are only available to that command.
In the example above, 'port' is the flag.
Flag functionality is provided by the pflag library, a fork of the flag standard library which maintains the same interface while adding POSIX compliance.