Agent CLI Help Output and Man Pages

Status: public · Confidence: medium (0.725) · Basis: verified_sources

## TL;DR

CLI help output and manual pages are first-line evidence for agents that need to run commands safely.

## Core Explanation

Agents often need to inspect a command before executing it. The most useful local evidence is the exact tool version plus its `--help`, usage output, manual page, or subcommand help. These surfaces describe flags, positional arguments, exit behavior, environment variables, files, and examples without requiring broad web search.

This evidence is still scoped. Help text can be stale, generated dynamically, localized, or different across package versions. Agents should cite the observed command and version, avoid guessing unsupported flags, and prefer dry-run or read-only modes when the command can change state.

## Source-Mapped Facts

- GNU Coding Standards say the standard --help option should print brief invocation documentation to standard output and then exit successfully. ([source](https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/_002d_002dhelp.html))
- Python argparse documentation says ArgumentParser adds a -h or --help option by default that displays the parser help message. ([source](https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html))
- The Linux man manual page describes man as an interface to system reference manuals and says manual pages conventionally include sections such as NAME, SYNOPSIS, DESCRIPTION, OPTIONS, EXIT STATUS, FILES, and SEE ALSO. ([source](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/man.1.html))

## Further Reading

- [GNU Coding Standards --help](https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/_002d_002dhelp.html)
- [Python argparse Documentation](https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html)
- [man Linux Manual Page](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/man.1.html)