commanderjs-version-check-report.md

Commander.js Version Check Report

Date: 2025-07-06
Purpose: Verify that all Commander.js CLIs properly report their package.json version

Summary

Checked 10 projects in ~/code that use Commander.js. All projects successfully built, but one project (fs-to-xml) has a runtime dependency issue.

Overall Results

• ✅ 9 of 10 projects have matching CLI and package.json versions
• ⚠️ 1 of 10 projects has a missing dependency preventing version check
• ⚠️ 7 of 9 working projects incorrectly output "Error:" with their version
• ✅ 2 of 9 working projects (context-composer-cli, tmux-composer-cli) have clean version output

Detailed Results

Project	Package Version	CLI Version	Status	Notes
fs-to-xml	0.1.0	❌ Error	⚠️ Runtime Error	Missing 'bash-parser' dependency
theme-installer-cli	0.1.1	0.1.1	✅ Match	⚠️ Outputs "Error: 0.1.1"
meta-composer-cli	0.1.0	0.1.0	✅ Match	⚠️ Outputs "Error: 0.1.0"
context-composer-cli	0.1.0	0.1.0	✅ Match	✅ Clean output
commanderjs-template	0.1.0	0.1.0	✅ Match	⚠️ Outputs "Error: 0.1.0"
claude-code-generic-hooks	0.1.4	0.1.4	✅ Match	⚠️ Outputs "Error: 0.1.4"
claude-code-inject	0.1.7	0.1.7	✅ Match	⚠️ Outputs "Error: 0.1.7"
claude-code-chat-stream	0.1.3	0.1.3	✅ Match	⚠️ Outputs "Error: 0.1.3"
tmux-composer-cli	0.1.1	0.1.1	✅ Match	✅ Clean output
comment-destroyer	0.1.0	0.1.0	✅ Match	⚠️ Outputs "Error: 0.1.0"

Issues Found

1. fs-to-xml - Missing Dependency

Error [ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND]: Cannot find package 'bash-parser' imported from /home/mike/code/fs-to-xml/dist/cli.js

• The project builds successfully but fails at runtime
• Missing 'bash-parser' dependency prevents version check
• Recommendation: Add 'bash-parser' to package.json dependencies

2. Incorrect "Error:" Output in Version Display

Most projects (7 out of 9 working ones) incorrectly display "Error: " when running --version. This happens because:

• These projects use program.exitOverride() in their Commander.js setup
• When --version is called, Commander throws an error with code commander.version
• The error handling code doesn't check for this specific error code
• The version number gets printed as an error message

Affected Projects:

• theme-installer-cli
• meta-composer-cli
• commanderjs-template
• claude-code-generic-hooks
• claude-code-inject
• claude-code-chat-stream
• comment-destroyer

Clean Output Projects:

• context-composer-cli ✅
• tmux-composer-cli ✅

Fix:

Add a check for commander.version in the error handling:

if (
  error.code === 'commander.help' ||
  error.code === 'commander.helpDisplayed' ||
  error.code === 'commander.version'
) {
  process.exit(0)
}

Common Characteristics

All projects share these traits:

• Use Commander.js ^12.0.0
• Built with tsup
• TypeScript-based
• ES modules ("type": "module")
• Require Node.js 18+
• All have executable at ./dist/cli.js

Conclusion

While all functional projects correctly report their version numbers, most have a cosmetic issue where the version is incorrectly prefixed with "Error:". This is due to incomplete error handling when using exitOverride() with Commander.js.

Action Items:

1. Fix fs-to-xml by adding the missing 'bash-parser' dependency
2. Update error handling in 7 projects to properly handle the commander.version error code
3. Use context-composer-cli or tmux-composer-cli as reference implementations for clean version output