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Merged
merged 13 commits into from
Sep 24, 2025
Merged

Improve --help for enhanced user experience #24903

merged 13 commits into from
Sep 24, 2025

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hmellor
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@hmellor hmellor commented Sep 15, 2025

Closes #22647:

  • Ensures that help text is fetched from attr docstrings if --help is in any arg
  • Add personalised epilogs for subcommand help text
  • Improve vllm serve description to be clearer in vllm serve --help
  • Concise top level --help for all subcommands which use FlexibleArgumentParser
  • Refactored --help= logic to be cleaner and match the new desired behaviour
  • Removed less/more pagination since this PR contains an alternative solution

@hmellor
Generate help text if --help is in any arg
61d54a6 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
@hmellor
Better epilog
b19166b 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
@hmellor
Better description
b588b8e 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
@hmellor
Better argparse import
dc5df33 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
@hmellor
Skip arguments by default in SortedHelpFormatter
375fefe 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
@hmellor
Use concise formatting when using bare --help
050bd87 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
@hmellor
Update --help=... to match the new desired behaviour
5afd158 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
@mergify mergify bot added the frontend label Sep 15, 2025
@hmellor hmellor mentioned this pull request Sep 15, 2025
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Code Review

This pull request significantly improves the user experience of the CLI's --help functionality by making it more concise and introducing a powerful search feature. The refactoring also cleans up the argument parsing logic. I've identified a couple of issues: a potential crash when formatting help text for argument groups without a title, and a regression in the --help=<group> behavior that could lead to confusing output. Addressing these will make the new help system more robust and user-friendly.

@hmellor
Revert to exit early so groups and single args aren't mixed
2acfe03 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
@JustinXHale
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Thanks so much for working on this @hmellor!

@hmellor
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hmellor commented Sep 16, 2025

No problem, I'll give you some time to tinker with it to see if it behaves how you imagined, then I'll sort out pre-commit and get a code review

@hmellor
Fix CLI Reference
d67202b 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
@hmellor
Move custom --help behaviour into FlexibleAargumentParser
e2c3b3e 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
@mergify mergify bot added the documentation Improvements or additions to documentation label Sep 16, 2025
DarkLight1337
DarkLight1337 reviewed Sep 24, 2025
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@hmellor
Make search keyword case insensitive and accept _ or -
5e34c6e 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
@hmellor
Update description and epilog
54f78c9 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
DarkLight1337
DarkLight1337 approved these changes Sep 24, 2025
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Thanks, LGTM

@hmellor hmellor enabled auto-merge (squash) September 24, 2025 08:51
@github-actions github-actions bot added the ready ONLY add when PR is ready to merge/full CI is needed label Sep 24, 2025
@hmellor hmellor merged commit e7f27ea into vllm-project:main Sep 24, 2025
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@hmellor hmellor deleted the cli-ux branch September 24, 2025 23:08
yewentao256 pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Oct 3, 2025
@hmellor @yewentao256
Improve --help for enhanced user experience (#24903)
7319686 
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
Signed-off-by: yewentao256 <zhyanwentao@126.com>
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@simon-mo simon-mo simon-mo approved these changes

@DarkLight1337 DarkLight1337 DarkLight1337 approved these changes

@aarnphm aarnphm Awaiting requested review from aarnphm aarnphm is a code owner

@chaunceyjiang chaunceyjiang Awaiting requested review from chaunceyjiang chaunceyjiang is a code owner

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[RFC]: Improve vllm serve --help Output for Enhanced User Experience
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@hmellor @JustinXHale @simon-mo @DarkLight1337