Help for shell

[cfjedimaster]

Where is the help for commands supported by the shell? Running help loads up info on some things, but what about commands like ls, cat, clear, etc?

Also - where is the help about the shell environment in general. For example, I just found that pwd works. It shows my local directory from where I ran fsh. But ls is a list of resources. So... in some ways the file sys commands are remote, and sometimes they are local.

[cfjedimaster]

Related (maybe) - wsk activation list works, but wsk activation poll does not. I kinda expect that I guess, but,... shoot - why doesn't it work? The shell is able to graphically represent other things, so I could see this working too. :)

[rabbah]

I have to say that even for me sometimes I forget the commands and can't figure out how to do. Def. need to improve the help on the command line and inside the shell.

[allen-servedio]

@starpit - Is there any way to get a list of the commands directly supported by fsh? You all have a lot of neat functionality in this tool, but something even as simple as list activations or grid do not appear documented anywhere (I randomly guessed I could type list activations and found out about grid as I clicked on things). Not knowing what is possible is a large sized barrier to adoption.

[starpit]

agreed. we'll see what we can do in short order

[allen-servedio]

@starpit - I can see two approaches to moving this forward:

1. On each release, add docs for at least one command (so keep picking at it until it is done). There appear to be daily releases so folks could chew through a lot of docs pretty quickly.

2. Update the ticket with some suggestions on how people could go through the code picking out commands and where the docs should be added. I think if you lower the barrier to helping out on this, a few of us can jump in and get you caught up - then it is just a matter of keeping stuff up to date.

[allen-servedio]

@starpit - Got a heads up that you all released a ton of help over the weekend... It looks great!

There does seem to be a small group of commands that are still not showing up in any help that I can find. Things like:

• grid
• timeline
• ls
• list
• summary

Also, I would think that you all would want to join together the commands covered in help. Meaning, you see one set of options when you just type fsh, but see a whole other set when you type fsh help. It probably makes sense to bring that all together into one cohesive set of docs.

But, this is a great improvement so thanks!

Here is what am talking about for the different available options:

$ fsh
Welcome to the IBM Cloud Functions Shell

Usage information:
fsh about                                    [ Display version information ]
fsh help                                     [ Show more detailed help, with tutorials ]
fsh shell                                    [ Open graphical shell ]
fsh run <script.fsh>                         [ Execute commands from a file ]

fsh app init                                 [ Initialize state management ]
fsh app preview <file.js|file.json>          [ Prototype a composition, with visualization help ]
fsh app list                                 [ List deployed compositions ]
fsh app create <name> <file.js|file.json>    [ Deploy a composition ]
fsh app update <name> <file.js|file.json>    [ Update or deploy composition ]
fsh app delete <name>                        [ Undeploy a composition ]
fsh app invoke <name>                        [ Invoke a composition and wait for its response ]
fsh app async <name>                         [ Asynchronously invoke a composition ]

fsh session list                             [ List recent app invocations ]
fsh session get <sessionId>                  [ Graphically display the result and flow of a session ]
fsh session result <sessionId>               [ Print the return value of a session ]
fsh session kill <sessionId>                 [ Kill a live session ]
fsh session purge <sessionId>                [ Purge the state of a completed session ]

$ fsh help
Shell Docs / Getting Started
A summary of the top-level command structure. Select an available command to learn more.

Available Commands
composer/   Create and invoke complex applications
editor/     In-shell editing operations
local/      Local activations and debugging
visualize/  Activation visualizations
wsk/        The fundamental OpenWhisk operations

[starpit]

thanks for the help on help @allen-servedio !

grid, timeline, and summary should be there, under visualizations. fsh will be resolved by #571

the last of the things you mentioned covers help for aliases: e.g. ls versus list. this will come next.