Installing the `bao` executable

Assuming you have Rust/Cargo installed, run this command in a terminal:

cargo install baobao

It will make the bao command available in your PATH if you've allowed the PATH to be modified when installing Rust. cargo uninstall baobao uninstalls.

Back to the crate overview.

Readme

baobao

Bao is a very opinionated tool to generate CLI applications in multiple programming languages from a single configuration file.

Crates

[!Note] Crates are published as baobao* on crates.io instead of bao* to avoid confusion with an already existing and unrelated bao crate.

Crate	Description
baobao	CLI tool for generating CLI applications from TOML
baobao-core	Core utilities for Bao CLI generator
baobao-manifest	TOML manifest parsing and validation
baobao-codegen	Shared code generation utilities
baobao-codegen-rust	Rust code generator
baobao-codegen-typescript	TypeScript code generator

Installation

cargo install baobao

Quick Start

Initialize a new project:

bao init myapp
# Select language interactively, or use: bao init myapp --language rust

This creates a complete project with a bao.toml manifest:

[cli]
name = "myapp"
version = "0.1.0"

[commands.hello]
description = "Say hello"
args = ["name"]
flags = ["uppercase"]

Edit bao.toml to add commands, then regenerate:

bao bake

Commands

Command	Description
`bao init [name]`	Initialize a new CLI project
`bao bake`	Generate code from bao.toml
`bao add command <name>`	Add a new command
`bao remove command <name>`	Remove a command
`bao rename command <old> <new>`	Rename a command
`bao list`	List commands and context
`bao info`	Display project info and statistics
`bao check`	Validate bao.toml
`bao clean`	Remove orphaned generated files
`bao fmt`	Format bao.toml
`bao run`	Run the CLI (shortcut for `cargo run --`)
`bao completions <shell>`	Generate shell completions

Features

Type-safe argument parsing (clap for Rust, boune for TypeScript)
Handler stubs generated for each command
Context for shared state (database pools, HTTP clients, etc.)
Multiple language targets from a single manifest

License

This project is licensed under the MIT LICENSE

Installing the bao executable

Installing the `bao` executable