Cocona - Clean console apps in .NET

Cocona is a small framework that simplifies building command line applications in .NET. It handles parsing, help pages, dependency injection and more, so you can focus on your app's logic. It makes it easy to build well-structured vertically sliced commands.

Simple DI

Cocona uses the same dependency injection (DI) abstractions as ASP.NET Core. Register your services with a builder and they are automatically injected into your command classes.

var builder = CoconaApp.CreateBuilder();

builder.Services.AddTransient<IMessageService, MessageService>();
builder.Services.AddSingleton<TodoService>();

builder.Build().Run();

Commands and subcommands

Commands are created from classes and methods. Each public method becomes a command. You can also group related commands using subcommands by applying the [HasSubCommands] attribute.

[HasSubCommands(typeof(MathCommands))]
public class Program
{
    public static void Main(string[] args) => CoconaApp.Run<Program>(args);

    public void Hello(string name) => Console.WriteLine($"Hello {name}!");
}

public class MathCommands
{
    public void Add(int a, int b) => Console.WriteLine(a + b);
}

Running app math add 1 2 executes the Add command defined in MathCommands.

Options

Method parameters become command arguments. Prefix a parameter with [Option] to make it an option instead. Cocona parses the command line and assigns values automatically.

public void Hello([Option('t', Description = "Greeting text")] string text, string name)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"{text}, {name}!");
}

You can call this with app hello --text "Hi" Brady.

Automatic help pages

Cocona generates help output for you. Run the command with --help or -h to see available commands, options and descriptions.

app --help

Give Cocona a go the next time you need a quick command line tool.