[feature] Did you mean X? in CLI parsing errors

[Ryuno-Ki]

Is your feature request related to a problem ?

Last week I was looking into a CLI command to purge orphaned images. I found the associated command without much hassle but was set aback when the CLI throw an error, that host wasn't set (paraphrased).

I remembered that often I have to pass in the config file as a parameter but used --config instead of --config-path.

The start of the text highlights in bold:

Please note -- for all of these commands, you will still need to set the global options correctly so that the CLI tool knows how eg., how to connect to your database, which database to use, which host and account domain to use etc.

You can set these options using environment variables, passing them as CLI flags (eg., gotosocial [commands] --host example.org), or by just pointing the CLI tool towards your config file (eg., gotosocial --config-path ./config.yaml [commands]).

I was looking for a command to copy-paste and failed.

Describe the solution you'd like.

In order to aid with the exploration I brought up in the matrix Help channel to make the error message more helpful.

This could take various forms:

Invalid config option --config. Did you mean --config-path?

or

The variable host isn't set. Please use --config-path config.yaml or similar.

Describe alternatives you've considered.

I'm aware that this suggestion adds a maintenance burden. At the same time, it is a touch point to delight people using GoToSocial.

During error messages like the above, the person in front can feel stressed. In these situations it can be hard to think clearly. Having some helpful pointers to grab can help resolving an issue.

I'm aware of certain tools linking to documentation when the usage violates the expectation. This way the maintenance can be reduced. The context is clear (CLI admin call in this case). Therefore it could look like

The variable host is not set. Read more at https://docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/admin/cli or ask for help in Matrix

Additional context.

No response

[tsmethurst]

I'd be fine with adding "did you mean xyz" messages if it's something supported by Cobra, the CLI tooling that we use. I don't think it's going to be a high priority to write such helpers ourselves, given how many other things we have to work on.

Also worth noting that the gotosocial --help command already links back to the documentation website.