Optionator is a JavaScript, Node.js option parsing and help generation library. It parses command-line style inputs, validates options and argument types (including suggested corrections for invalid options), and can generate formatted help text for commands and individual options.
Project status
- Maintenance status: The repo shows an upstream push on 2024-04-26, but the most recent tagged updates in the provided history are from 2023-06-28 (0.9.2 and 0.9.3), so there is no evidence of active ongoing maintenance as of 2026-06-09. Overall, it appears quiet, maintenance mode.
- Update cadence: Historically, updates are highly infrequent (multiple multi-year gaps, for example 2020 to 2023), and there is no evidence of updates after mid-2023 in the supplied release list, despite the upstream push in 2024.
AI summary generated
Recent updates
0.9.3
Release 0.9.3 appears to be a minimal update. The only substantive code change is in help text wrapping, where the underlying `word-wrap` dependency is swapped to `@aashutoshrathi/word-wrap`, alongside version string bumps across source, build output, and README.
0.9.2
Release 0.9.2 primarily bumps the package version and the embedded VERSION constant from 0.9.1 to 0.9.2. The only substantive non-version change visible in the diff is a dependency rename for word wrapping and the removal of the package-lock.json file.
0.9.1
Release 0.9.1 was published on 2020-04-04, but the publisher did not provide any release notes. As a result, there is no documented information about new features, fixes, or breaking changes in this release.
0.9.0
Release 0.9.0 mainly bumps package versioning and updates dependency ranges, with a focus on argument parsing related libraries. The diff also modernizes the development tooling for tests (Mocha invocation changes) and removes Istanbul-based coverage targets.
0.8.3
This release bumps Optionator from 0.8.2 to 0.8.3, updating the build tooling (LiveScript) and multiple dependencies. The main functional code change appears in help text wrapping, where the project switches from `wordwrap` to `word-wrap` and adds a small compatibility wrapper in the help generator.
0.8.2
Version 0.8.2 primarily fixes bug #18, where option parsing failed to detect a missing value when the value-requiring flag appears as the last token. The release documentation provided here is minimal, but the code and changelog indicate a dependency refresh and a behavioral change in argument parsing error handling.
0.8.1
Release 0.8.1 is essentially a version bump with a dependency update. The code changes are limited to updating the embedded version string and adjusting the declared version range for the `fast-levenshtein` dependency.
0.8.0
This release bumps optionator to 0.8.0 and updates several runtime dependencies, most notably `levn` and `type-check`. The only code-level behavioral signal in the diff is around numeric type casting, with a test that previously allowed floats to be treated as `Int` being removed.
0.7.1
Version 0.7.1 primarily contains a bug fix around how the library applies `defaults` in combination with `concatRepeatedArrays` and `mergeRepeatedObjects`. The compiled `lib/index.js` and source `src/index.ls` now only copy those top-level options into `defaults` when they are actually provided, and tests were updated accordingly.
0.7.0
Release 0.7.0 was published on 2015-12-09, but the publisher did not provide any release notes. Without documented changes, developers should review the commit history and diff for breaking API or behavioral modifications before upgrading.