Announcing SAFE CLI Boilerplate - create command line apps for SAFE Network

SAFE CLI Boilerplate is an easy way to make cross-platform command line SAFE apps for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. These are not ‘headless’ apps, but will auth with SAFE Browser or Peruse just like a desktop app such as the Web Hosting Manager.

Tested on Linux and Windows, but not yet Mac OS, so if anybody is willing to test this on Mac OS please get in touch.

Full instructions here:

Coders: if you build anything with this, anything at all, please feel free to let us know on this topic. I’m excited to see what people build with this, and of course have a plan myself :slight_smile:

Everyone: feel free to suggest command line stuff you’d like somebody to build, or any features you’d like added to safe-cli-boilerplate. Personally I’d like somebody to make an authentication module in NodeJS so we could build headless apps with this.

Debugging: I haven’t tried this yet, but think it is possible to use a proper debug console with this (like in the browser). See: Debugging Node.js with Chrome DevTools

Problems & Bugs: if you try this and have problems, please either file an issue in the github repo, or ask for help on the dev forum here.

I’ve had help from several here with both code and testing, so many thanks to @bzee, @davidpbrown @southside @draw and @hunterlester.

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Hey Mark,
I can start having a look at the weekend - I’ve been putting off tinkering around for too long.
David.

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Looks handy! Good work, Mark!

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That would be really awesome yes !!

You are prolific these days Mark ! Thank you very much for all that great work. I will for sure be one adopter for cli safe applications. Raspberry for remote stuff come in mind.

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My Raspberry has no head, and I like it that way. :frowning: But beggars can’t be choosers. This is doubtless a base that headless apps can be built from and I’m very happy that it exists.

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Really nice work! Thank you!

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One gotcha held me back here.
Note that node v8.x is a requirment of the SAFE Network API: @maidsafe/safe-node-app.

node v9.x will NOT work - stumped me for days until I read … carefully.

Latest is not always the greatest…

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Node is a pain in the arse, isn’t it? Why isn’t it backwards compatible?

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You’re allowed to break things when you bump the first number, 8 - > 9. It’s the law!

Thank you @southside for being the guinea pig :joy: [mic drop]

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I’m kinda new here, but should that not be part of @maidsafe/safe-node-app?

It could be, but doesn’t have to be and I’m not expecting Maidsafe to implement this anytime soon as it isn’t essential. It is also better to do most authentication stuff through a single UI (SAFE Browser) for most users, and anything else is much more niche. So much less a priority for them I think.

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Just wanted to say you’re awesome @happybeing keep up the good and hard work.

Really inspirational. I’ll be working on some more articles when I get back and some further marketing efforts.

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Thank you for saying so. I really appreciate it and will let it go to my head :laughing:

… especially as not everybody agrees. But yes I am, we all are in our particular way, whether anyone else agrees or not. But yes, I still enjoy praise, as well as find it useful feedback - so alternative views are also allowed and listened to.

Thanks again, and great to hear you have more articles in you @goindeep. Good luck with them.

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