---
id: cli-helpers
version: "2.15.1"
license: unclear
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# cli-helpers — Helpers for building command-line apps

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 890.7K/mo

## What it is and what it does

CLI Helpers is a lightweight utility library designed to complement command-line frameworks like Click and Python Prompt Toolkit. It wraps up common CLI tasks into simple, reusable interfaces without imposing a particular design pattern or framework dependency. The package focuses on two core areas: formatting and displaying tabular data with custom preprocessing options, and managing configuration file reading and writing.

The library is built on top of configobj and tabulate, two focused dependencies that handle the underlying work. It's intended for developers building command-line applications who want to avoid repeating boilerplate code for data display and config handling. The package remains framework-agnostic, so you can use it standalone or alongside other CLI libraries.

Use it for:

- Format and display query results or structured data in a terminal-friendly way within a CLI tool.
- Read and write application configuration files from command-line utilities without managing file I/O directly.
- Build database CLI clients that need clean tabular output.
- Preprocess and customize how tabular data appears before printing to the terminal.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

CLI Helpers provides utilities for common command-line interface tasks: prettyprinting tabular data with custom preprocessing and reading/writing config files.

Yes. The package is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, low install friction, and a permissive license. It solves a genuine problem—boilerplate reduction for common CLI tasks—and is already in use across popular projects. Install it if you're building command-line tools that need table formatting or config file handling.

## Install

pip install cli-helpers
uv add cli-helpers
poetry add cli-helpers

## Installing cli-helpers

Before you install: Low install friction with only 2 runtime dependencies (configobj and tabulate). Actively maintained with a recent release 20 days ago and ongoing repository activity.

License in practice: Permissive license allows use in most projects without significant restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install cli-helpers

from cli_helpers.tabulate import tabulate
data = [['Name', 'Value'], ['example', 'data']]
print(tabulate(data))

Requires Python 3.6 or later.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package's table formatting capabilities extend beyond what tabulate alone provides.
- Specific config file formats supported beyond standard INI/config syntax.
- Custom preprocessing capabilities and their scope for tabular data.

## Package facts

- License: not declared (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 890.7K/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

cli table formatting, command line output formatting, config file handling python, terminal data display, cli utility library, tabular data printing, command-line helpers, cli-utilities, table-formatting

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