commandlist

A commandlist is a structured collection of command definitions that can be invoked by a system or application. It serves as a centralized reference for users or developers to understand the available operations, their syntax, and parameters. The concept originated in early command‑line interfaces, where help menus and manual pages needed a concise way to document usable commands. Over time, commandlists evolved into configuration files, command schemas, and packaged APIs for developer tools.

In practice, a commandlist entry typically contains the command name, a brief description, usage syntax, and optional parameters or options. Some implementations also support aliases, default values, and help text that can be displayed automatically by the system. By keeping a single definition source, teams can reduce duplication and ensure consistency across documentation, tooling, and runtime behavior. Many systems adopt a declarative style, writing commandlists in JSON, YAML, or a domain‑specific language that is parsed by a command execution engine.

Examples include Unix shell scripts that expose functions via a commandlist, application frameworks that expose command‑based plugins, or cloud management platforms that use commandlists to describe REST API endpoints. The format is informal, but common patterns often include fields such as “name”, “args”, “options”, and “description”. Some commandlist systems include introspection features, allowing tools to enumerate available commands and generate help messages automatically. Popular implementations can be found in container orchestration platforms, large web frameworks, and programming language REPL environments.