Modern CLI for easybuild

[Crivella]

Proposals and ideas to modernize the CLI of easybuild to improve usability

From various discussion the 2 main points that came up are:

• UI/UX: Improve the CLI by using more modern CLI packages for python such as Click or Typer
  A PoC for this is already present in

  • New wrapped CLI using click #4961

  Where the options of the existing argparse based CLI are extracted and used to generate a new click CLI with the only purpose of providing improved UI, both in help/wrong_option and for tracebacks, with rich + rich_click and automatic tab completion for bash, zsh and fish coming from click

• CLI with sub-commands: re-design the existing CLI to be more modular making use of sub-commands

  • PoC (WIP) using click: develop...Crivella:easybuild-framework:cli2

From my side i think Click would be a better choice w.r.t Typer:

• More established package with better ecosystem
• Allow more powerful customization (would probably also be possible in Typer but using click)
  • EG, not sure it Typer has its own way to implement/use contexts which i think will be required
• Stylistically, i think using decorators to build the CLI is more readable than jamming the info into annotated typehints, but that might be my inexperience with Typer

[branfosj]

While modernising we should also consider what options / functionality should be within the eb command.

Options , and features, to consider removing:

1. Regression testing: --aggregate-regtest, --regtest, --regtest-output-dir, --sequential.
   We've talked in the past about removing these - partially as they cause confusion.
2. Container support: --container-build-image, --container-config, --container-image-format, --container-image-name, --container-template-recipe, --container-tmpdir, --container-type
   See notes at https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild/wiki/Notes-from-EasyBuild-maintainer-summit-2026#containers-adam
3. Package support: --package, --package-release, --package-tool, --package-tool-options, --package-type
   everything mentioned about support for building containers in EB is relevant here for building RPMs.

And, my more controversial suggestion:

• We should split EasyBuild configuration and EasyBuild runtime options. Then:
  • configuration is done only via config file or environment variable
  • runtime is done via the CLI

[Crivella]

Added an example of installing eb2 from

• New wrapped CLI using click #4961 (comment)

With an easyconfig for testing