Mamba

A modern, drop-in replacement for Cobra with enhanced terminal features including beautiful colored output, interactive prompts, loading spinners, and progress bars.

Fast, elegant, and powerful - just like the snake.

Features

Core Cobra Compatibility:

• Subcommands & Nesting - Full support for complex CLI hierarchies
• POSIX Flags - Short & long flags via pflag
• Command Aliases - Multiple names for the same command
• Lifecycle Hooks - PreRun, PostRun, and persistent variants
• Argument Validation - Built-in validators (ExactArgs, MinimumNArgs, etc.)
• Help Generation - Automatic -h, --help with enhanced styling

Modern Terminal Features:

• Styled Output - Beautiful colors and formatting using lipgloss
• Interactive Prompts - User-friendly input with huh
• Loading Spinners - Visual feedback for long-running operations
• Progress Bars - Track progress for batch operations
• Enhanced Help - Colored, structured help messages

Demo

See Mamba in action! Run the included demo to experience all features:

go get github.com/base-go/mamba
cd examples/basic
go run main.go

The demo showcases:

• Styled output (success, error, warning, info)
• Loading spinners with animations
• Progress bars for batch operations
• Interactive prompts
• Modern help messages

Installation

go get github.com/base-go/mamba

Quick Start

package main
import (
"github.com/base-go/mamba"
)
funcmain() {
rootCmd:=&mamba.Command{
Use: "myapp",
Short: "My awesome CLI application",
Run: func(cmd*mamba.Command, args []string) {
cmd.PrintSuccess("Welcome to Mamba!")
},
}
rootCmd.Execute()
}

Migration from Cobra

Migrating from Cobra to Mamba is incredibly simple - just change your imports!

Before (Cobra)

import (
"github.com/spf13/cobra"
)
varrootCmd=&cobra.Command{
Use: "myapp",
Short: "My application",
Run: func(cmd*cobra.Command, args []string) {
fmt.Println("Hello from Cobra")
},
}

After (Mamba)

import (
"github.com/base-go/mamba"
)
varrootCmd=&mamba.Command{
Use: "myapp",
Short: "My application",
Run: func(cmd*mamba.Command, args []string) {
cmd.PrintSuccess("Hello from Mamba!")
},
}

That's it! Your existing Cobra code will work seamlessly with Mamba, but you now have access to modern terminal features.

Cobra Compatibility

Mamba implements all core Cobra features:

Fully Supported:

• Subcommand-based CLIs (app server, app fetch, etc.)
• POSIX-compliant flags (short & long versions via pflag)
• Nested subcommands
• Global, local, and cascading flags
• Automatic help generation with -h, --help
• Command aliases
• Lifecycle hooks (PreRun, PostRun, etc.)
• Argument validators (ExactArgs, MinimumNArgs, etc.)
• Custom help and usage functions
• Context support

Not Yet Implemented:

• Intelligent suggestions ("did you mean...?")
• Shell autocomplete generation (bash, zsh, fish, powershell)
• Man page generation
• Command grouping in help
• Viper integration for config files

Mamba vs Cobra

Feature	Cobra	Mamba
Command structure	Yes	Yes
Subcommands & nesting	Yes	Yes
POSIX flags (pflag)	Yes	Yes
Lifecycle hooks	Yes	Yes
Argument validation	Yes	Yes
Command aliases	Yes	Yes
Help generation	Yes	Yes (Enhanced & Styled)
Shell autocomplete	Yes	No (planned)
Intelligent suggestions	Yes	No (planned)
Man page generation	Yes	No (planned)
Viper integration	Optional	No (planned)
Colored output	No	Yes
Loading spinners	No	Yes
Progress bars	No	Yes
Interactive prompts	No	Yes
Modern terminal UX	No	Yes

Enhanced Features

Styled Output

Mamba provides beautiful, pre-styled output methods:

cmd:=&mamba.Command{
Use: "demo",
Run: func(cmd*mamba.Command, args []string) {
cmd.PrintSuccess("Operation completed successfully")
cmd.PrintError("Something went wrong")
cmd.PrintWarning("This is a warning")
cmd.PrintInfo("Here's some information")
cmd.PrintHeader("Section Header")
cmd.PrintBullet("Bullet point item")
cmd.PrintCode("go run main.go")
cmd.PrintBox("Title", "Important message in a box")
},
}

Interactive Prompts

Create beautiful interactive prompts with ease:

import"github.com/base-go/mamba/pkg/interactive"// Simple text inputname, err:=interactive.AskString("What's your name?", "Enter your name")
// Yes/No confirmationconfirmed, err:=interactive.AskConfirm("Do you want to continue?", true)
// Selection from listoptions:= []interactive.SelectOption{
{Key: "red", Value: "Red"},
{Key: "blue", Value: "Blue"},
{Key: "green", Value: "Green"},
}
color, err:=interactive.AskSelect("Choose a color:", options)
// Multi-selectionselected, err:=interactive.AskMultiSelect("Choose features:", options, 0)

Loading Spinners

Show progress for long-running operations:

import"github.com/base-go/mamba/pkg/spinner"err:=spinner.WithSpinner("Processing...", func() error {
// Your long-running operation heretime.Sleep(2*time.Second)
returnnil
})

Progress Bars

Track progress for batch operations:

import"github.com/base-go/mamba/pkg/spinner"spinner.WithProgress("Processing items...", total, func(updatefunc()) {
fori:=0; i<total; i++ {
// Process itemtime.Sleep(100*time.Millisecond)
update() // Update progress bar
}
})

Custom Styling

Use the style package directly for custom formatting:

import"github.com/base-go/mamba/pkg/style"fmt.Println(style.Success("Success!"))
fmt.Println(style.Error("Error!"))
fmt.Println(style.Bold("Bold text"))
fmt.Println(style.Code("code snippet"))
fmt.Println(style.Header("Header"))
fmt.Println(style.Box("Title", "Content"))

Full Example

See the examples/basic directory for a complete demonstration of all features:

# Run the examplecd examples/basic
go run main.go
# Or use the pre-built binary
./mamba styled # View styled output demo
./mamba greet --name Alice # Try command with flags
./mamba process --count 5 # See loading spinner
./mamba progress --count 10 # See progress bar
./mamba interactive # Try interactive prompts
./mamba list # View feature list

API Compatibility

Mamba maintains 100% API compatibility with Cobra. All these features work identically:

• Command structure (Use, Short, Long, Example)
• Subcommands (AddCommand, RemoveCommand)
• Flags (local, persistent, shorthand)
• Lifecycle hooks (PreRun, PostRun, PersistentPreRun, etc.)
• Argument validators (NoArgs, ExactArgs, MinimumNArgs, etc.)
• Error handling (RunE, PreRunE, PostRunE)
• Context support
• Custom help and usage templates

Advanced Usage

Disabling Modern Features

If you want to disable modern styling:

disableColors:=falsecmd:=&mamba.Command{
Use: "myapp",
EnableColors: &disableColors,
}

Custom IO Writers

Like Cobra, Mamba supports custom IO writers:

cmd.SetOutput(customWriter)
cmd.SetErr(customErrWriter)
cmd.SetIn(customReader)

Working with Existing Cobra Projects

For large projects with many files:

1. Update imports globally:

   find . -name "*.go" -type f -exec sed -i '''s|github.com/spf13/cobra|github.com/base-go/mamba|g' {} +

2. Run go mod tidy:

   go mod tidy

3. Rebuild your project:

   go build

That's it! Your application now has modern terminal features.

Architecture

Mamba is built on top of excellent libraries:

• spf13/pflag - POSIX-style flag parsing
• charmbracelet/lipgloss - Terminal styling
• charmbracelet/huh - Interactive forms
• charmbracelet/bubbles - TUI components

Roadmap

Planned features to achieve full Cobra parity:

• v1.1.0

  • Intelligent command suggestions ("did you mean...?")
  • Custom help templates and functions
  • Command grouping in help output

• v1.2.0

  • Shell completion generation (bash, zsh, fish, powershell)
  • Man page generation
  • Enhanced error messages with suggestions

• v1.3.0

  • Viper integration for configuration management
  • Advanced validation and hooks
  • Performance optimizations

Want to contribute? Check out our issues or submit a PR!

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

Why Mamba?

Cobra is excellent, but modern CLI applications deserve modern UX. Mamba brings:

• Better UX - Colors, spinners, and interactive prompts make CLIs more user-friendly
• Zero Migration Cost - Drop-in replacement means you can adopt it incrementally
• Progressive Enhancement - Use as much or as little of the modern features as you want
• Battle-tested - Built on proven libraries from the Charm ecosystem

Named after the black mamba snake - fast, elegant, and powerful.

Credits

Mamba is inspired by Cobra and uses the fantastic Charm libraries for terminal UI.