Compiling without a sketch

Describe the request

When I try to compile a .ino file in arduino-cli it gives this error,

$ arduino-cli compile --fqbn arduino:avr:uno test.ino

Error opening sketch: main file missing from sketch: /home/user/env/env.ino // "env" is the current folder

What I would like to suggest is that when the arduino-cli detects the .ino extension in the argument, it should compile right away without checking for the sketch.

If this gets approval, I'll start coding.

Describe the current behavior

Simply explained in Describe part

Arduino CLI version

nightly-20230609

Operating system

Linux

Operating system version

Artix

Additional context

No response

Issue checklist

• I searched for previous requests in the issue tracker
• I verified the feature was still missing when using the nightly build
• My request contains all necessary details

[ubidefeo]

@f4lkensmaz3

This is a common misconception, which we have been trying to address multiple times.
As stated in the sketch specs documentation

Because many Arduino sketches only contain a single .ino file, it's easy to think of that file as the sketch. However, it is the folder that is the sketch. The reason is that sketches may consist of multiple code files and the folder is what groups those files into a single program.

This means that the sketch is a folder, not the .ino file which contains its main entry point.
If you are in a location containing said .ino file you just need to issue a compile command, and the CLI will look at its path, identify the cwd and look for a file named exactly the same with the extension .ino

If you are in a directory above such sketch folder, you'll just need to specify the directory name

inside the sketch folder

arduino-cli compile --fqbn arduino:avr:uno

outside sketch folder

arduino-cli compile --fqbn arduino:avr:uno PATH/TO/mySketch

Hope this helps :)