---
id: cleo
version: "2.1.0"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# cleo — Cleo allows you to create beautiful and testable command-line interfaces.

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Popularity: top 1,000 on PyPI

## Install

pip install cleo
uv add cleo
poetry add cleo

## Description

# Cleo

[![Poetry](https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=https://python-poetry.org/badge/v0.json)](https://python-poetry.org/)
[![Tests](https://github.com/python-poetry/cleo/actions/workflows/tests.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/python-poetry/cleo/actions/workflows/tests.yml)
[![PyPI version](https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/cleo)](https://pypi.org/project/cleo/)

Create beautiful and testable command-line interfaces.

## Resources

- [Documentation](http://cleo.readthedocs.io)
- [Issue Tracker](https://github.com/python-poetry/cleo/issues)

## Usage

To make a command that greets you from the command line, create
`greet_command.py` and add the following to it:

```python
from cleo.commands.command import Command
from cleo.helpers import argument, option

class GreetCommand(Command):
    name = "greet"
    description = "Greets someone"
    arguments = [
        argument(
            "name",
            description="Who do you want to greet?",
            optional=True
        )
    ]
    options = [
        option(
            "yell",
            "y",
            description="If set, the task will yell in uppercase letters",
            flag=True
        )
    ]

    def...

## AI interpretation — verify before relying

Cleo is a framework for building beautiful, testable command-line interfaces with support for commands, arguments, options, colored output, and verbosity levels.

Verdict: Cleo is a stable, actively maintained CLI framework well-suited for building testable command-line applications. With low install friction, permissive MIT licensing, no known vulnerabilities, and top-1000 PyPI popularity, it is a reliable choice for developers needing structured CLI tooling.

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/cleo) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/cleo/)