paritytech / paritytech/polkadot-cli

feat: contextual examples in command help text

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enhancement
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
10
Forks
2
Avg merge
12h 35m
Merged PRs (30d)
4

Description

Summary

Static help text for commands lacks per-pallet or per-chain examples. Users must guess at syntax, especially for complex calls like XCM transfers or nested enum types.

Motivation

dot hash already has good inline examples (lines 52-69). Other commands should follow this pattern, and ideally provide metadata-aware examples when chain metadata is cached.

Proposed Changes

Phase 1: Enriched static help
  • Add comprehensive example blocks to dot tx, dot query, dot inspect help text
  • Include examples for common patterns: simple transfers, enum arguments, nested structs, Option types
  • Show examples of --dry-run, --output json, and other flags in context
Phase 2 (optional): Metadata-aware help
  • When metadata is cached, dot tx Balances --help could list available calls with their signatures
  • dot tx Balances.transfer_allow_death --help could show the full argument schema

Dependencies

  • Benefits from inspect listing calls (Issue #79 or equivalent)
  • Benefits from #54 (tx browsing)

Priority

P3 — Nice-to-have after core UX is solid. Size M.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by comparing the existing dot hash help examples at lines 52-69 with the help entry points for dot tx, dot query, and dot inspect. Review Issues #79 and #54 for dependent command capabilities. Done means the specified commands show contextual examples for transfers, enum and nested arguments, optional values, and relevant flags; metadata-aware help is an optional follow-up.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
cli, documentation
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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