Global Flags

pok exposes built-in global flags that control help output, terminal behavior, formatting, and command history.

Help

Display help information for any command.

mycli --help
mycli -h
mycli deploy --help

When used at the root level, shows the root help with all available commands. When used with a specific command, shows that command's usage, options, and description.

Help Output

$ mycli deploy --help
Deploy to environment

Usage: mycli deploy [options]

Aliases: d, dep

Options:
  --env <value>     Target environment (dev, staging, prod)
  --dry-run         Simulate without making changes
  --help            Show help

Version

Display the CLI version.

mycli --version

Shows the version from your package.json.

No TTY

Disable interactive UI (menus, prompts, spinners).

mycli --no-tty

When --no-tty is enabled:

• No interactive menus or prompts
• Missing required flags fail with helpful errors
• Root invocation (mycli) prints help instead of opening the menu

Use --no-tty when the command runs in:

• CI/CD environments
• Piping output to other tools
• Environments without TTY support
• Automation scripts

CI and NO_TTY=1 are treated as --no-tty.

No Unicode

Disable Unicode symbols and use ASCII fallbacks.

mycli deploy --no-unicode

When --no-unicode is enabled:

• Unicode symbols are replaced with ASCII fallbacks
• Color and interactivity are unaffected

Verbose Mode

Enable verbose output for debugging.

mycli deploy --verbose

When --verbose is enabled:

• Shows detailed execution information
• Displays full command output (not truncated)
• Includes timing information
• Shows environment variable resolution

No Color

Disable colored output.

mycli deploy --no-color

Strips ANSI color codes from all output. This is automatically enabled when:

• NO_COLOR environment variable is set
• Output is not a TTY (e.g., piped to a file)

Format

Specify the output format for commands with structured output.

mycli list --format json
mycli list --format table
mycli list --format csv

When a command defines an output schema, the --format flag controls how the data is rendered:

• No flag: Calls the command's format() function for human-readable display
• --format json: Outputs JSON.stringify(data) to stdout
• --format table: Table format (falls back to JSON currently)
• --format csv: CSV format (falls back to JSON currently)

This enables piping structured data to other tools:

mycli list --format json | jq '.tasks[] | .id'

Only applies to commands that define an output schema. Commands without output are unaffected.

Flag Combinations

Flags can be combined:

# CI-friendly: no prompts, no unicode, no colors
mycli deploy --no-tty --no-unicode --no-color

# Debugging: full output with colors
mycli deploy --verbose

# Machine-readable: structured JSON output
mycli list --format json --no-tty

Environment Variables

Some flags can also be set via environment variables:

Environment variables are overridden by explicit flags.

Command-Specific Flags

In addition to these global flags, each command can define its own flags via the context property:

export const command = defineCommand({
  label: 'Deploy',
  context: {
    env: {
      from: 'flag',
      schema: z.enum(['dev', 'staging', 'prod']),
      description: 'Target environment',
    },
    dryRun: {
      from: 'flag',
      schema: z.boolean().default(false),
      description: 'Simulate without making changes',
    },
  },
  run: async (r, ctx) => {
    // ctx.context.env, ctx.context.dryRun
  },
});

Flags can also define a resolve function to load interactive options (including pagination).

See defineCommand for full details on defining command flags.

The poks Binary

In addition to the main pok binary, the poks binary is provided to help you quickly rerun commands from your history.

# Open interactive history menu
poks

# Clear command history
poks --clear

See Command History for more details.