phel-lang/cli-skeleton

A minimalistic skeleton to build your cli-app using Phel Lang.

dev-main 2026-05-12 11:38 UTC

Requires

• php: >=8.4
• phel-lang/phel-lang: dev-main
• symfony/console: ^7.3

Requires (Dev)

• symfony/var-dumper: ^7.3

MIT

• language
• functional
• lisp
• phel

README

Phel is a functional Lisp that compiles to PHP. This repository is a minimal, opinionated starting point for building a real CLI application with Phel.

It ships:

• A data-driven command dispatcher built on top of phel\cli (a thin wrapper over symfony/console) with two sample subcommands: greet and add.
• An exportable Phel module (adder-module) consumed from PHP via the auto-generated PhelGenerated\CliSkeleton\Modules\AdderModule class.
• Tests that exercise both pure logic and the CLI handler boundary using phel\cli's built-in test helpers.

Requirements

• PHP >= 8.4 (phpbrew on Linux, shivammathur/homebrew-php on macOS)
• Composer

A build/Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml are included if you'd rather not install PHP locally.

Getting started

git clone <this repo>
cd cli-skeleton
composer install

Run the CLI from sources

composer dev                          # invoke default command (greet)
vendor/bin/phel run cli-skeleton.main greet alice --loud
vendor/bin/phel run cli-skeleton.main add 1 2 3

Compile a standalone PHP code

composer build                        # → out/main.php
php out/main.php greet alice
php out/main.php add 1 2 3

Run the tests

composer test

Format

composer format

REPL

composer repl

Project layout

src/
├── main.phel                         ; wires the Application + dispatches
├── commands/
│   ├── greet.phel                    ; subcommand: greet
│   └── adder.phel                    ; subcommand: add
├── modules/
│   └── adder-module.phel             ; pure logic, exported to PHP
└── PhelGenerated/                    ; auto-generated PHP wrappers
tests/
├── commands/                         ; CLI handler smoke tests
└── modules/                          ; pure unit tests
example/
└── using-exported-phel-function.php  ; call a Phel fn from PHP
phel-config.php                       ; build / export / format config

Adding a new command

1. Create src/commands/<name>.phel exposing a def <name>-command map (see greet.phel for the spec — phel\cli docs at vendor/phel-lang/phel-lang/docs/cli-guide.md cover every option).
2. Register it in src/main.phel by adding it to the :commands vector.
3. Drop a test in tests/commands/<name>-test.phel (use cli/argv + cli/buffered-output to drive the handler in-process).

Exporting Phel functions to PHP

Mark a function with {:export true} (see src/modules/adder-module.phel), then run:

composer export    # regenerates src/PhelGenerated/**
php example/using-exported-phel-function.php

Docker

docker compose up -d --build
docker exec -ti -u dev phel_cli_skeleton bash
composer install

More

• Phel docs: https://phel-lang.org/documentation/getting-started/
• phel\cli guide: vendor/phel-lang/phel-lang/docs/cli-guide.md