CLI Helper Skill

<CONTEXT> You are the cli-helper skill providing shared utilities for invoking the Fractary CLI from work plugin skills. This skill is a library, not directly invoked by agents.

The Fractary CLI (@fractary/cli) provides unified work tracking operations across platforms (GitHub, Jira, Linear). Skills use this helper to invoke CLI commands and parse JSON responses. </CONTEXT>

<CRITICAL_RULES>

This skill is a LIBRARY - not directly invoked by agents
Other skills import/use the invoke-cli.sh script
All CLI commands MUST use --json flag for programmatic output
ALWAYS check CLI availability before invocation
ALWAYS handle CLI errors and map to plugin error format </CRITICAL_RULES>

CLI Invocation Pattern

Skills should invoke the CLI using this pattern:

# Direct CLI invocation (recommended)
result=$(fractary work <subcommand> [options] --json 2>&1)
exit_code=$?

# Or using the helper script
HELPER_SCRIPT="plugins/work/skills/cli-helper/scripts/invoke-cli.sh"
result=$(bash "$HELPER_SCRIPT" <subcommand> [options] --json 2>&1)
exit_code=$?

Available CLI Commands

Issue Operations

fractary work issue create --title "Title" --body "Body" --labels "a,b" --json
fractary work issue fetch <number> --json
fractary work issue update <number> --title "New title" --json
fractary work issue close <number> --json
fractary work issue search --state open --limit 10 --json

Comment Operations

fractary work comment create <issue_number> --body "Comment text" --json
fractary work comment list <issue_number> --json

Label Operations

fractary work label add <issue_number> --labels "label1,label2" --json
fractary work label remove <issue_number> --labels "label1" --json
fractary work label list --json

Milestone Operations

fractary work milestone list --json
fractary work milestone set <issue_number> --milestone "v1.0" --json

Response Format

CLI returns JSON with consistent structure:

Success Response

{
  "status": "success",
  "data": {
    // Operation-specific data
  }
}

Error Response

{
  "status": "error",
  "error": {
    "code": "ERROR_CODE",
    "message": "Human-readable message",
    "details": {}
  }
}

Mapping CLI Response to Plugin Response

Skills should map CLI responses to the standard plugin response format:

# Parse CLI JSON response
cli_response=$(fractary work issue create --title "$TITLE" --json 2>&1)
cli_status=$(echo "$cli_response" | jq -r '.status')

if [ "$cli_status" = "success" ]; then
    # Extract data and build plugin response
    issue_id=$(echo "$cli_response" | jq -r '.data.number')
    issue_url=$(echo "$cli_response" | jq -r '.data.url')

    # Return plugin format
    cat <<EOF
{
  "status": "success",
  "operation": "create-issue",
  "result": {
    "id": "$issue_id",
    "identifier": "#$issue_id",
    "url": "$issue_url",
    "platform": "github"
  }
}
EOF
else
    # Extract error and return plugin error format
    error_code=$(echo "$cli_response" | jq -r '.error.code // "UNKNOWN_ERROR"')
    error_msg=$(echo "$cli_response" | jq -r '.error.message // "Unknown error"')

    cat <<EOF
{
  "status": "error",
  "operation": "create-issue",
  "code": "$error_code",
  "message": "$error_msg"
}
EOF
fi

Error Handling

Map CLI errors to plugin error codes:

CLI Exit Code	CLI Error Code	Plugin Error Code	Description
0	-	-	Success
1	CLI_NOT_FOUND	1	CLI not installed
1	AUTH_FAILED	11	Authentication failed
1	NOT_FOUND	3	Resource not found
1	NETWORK_ERROR	12	Network connectivity issue
1	VALIDATION_ERROR	2	Invalid parameters
1	API_ERROR	10	Platform API error

Dependencies

@fractary/cli >= 0.3.0 - Fractary CLI with work module
jq - JSON parsing
bash - Shell execution

Usage by Other Skills

Skills reference this helper by:

Direct CLI invocation (recommended):

fractary work issue create --title "Title" --json

Using helper script (for version checking):

bash plugins/work/skills/cli-helper/scripts/invoke-cli.sh issue create --title "Title" --json

The helper script adds:

CLI availability check
Version requirement validation
Consistent error messages

Testing

# Test CLI availability
fractary --version

# Test work module
fractary work --help

# Test JSON output
fractary work issue fetch 1 --json

cli-helper