Aliases and Resource Files¶

The client provides two facilities for cutting down on repetitive typing: aliases for shortening individual commands, and resource files for replaying a whole sequence of commands. Both are available in every interpreter through the core alias and rc commands.

Aliases¶

The alias command creates named shortcuts for commands. Aliases are persisted to data/client/aliases.json, so they survive across client restarts.

alias list
alias set ll "session list"
alias set -g admin_login "session connect -u admin -p admin -rh 127.0.0.1 -rp 9999"
alias unset ll

There are two kinds of alias:

• A local alias (without -g) only expands when it is the first token of a line. It behaves like a command shortcut and will not expand elsewhere.
• A global alias (-g) expands as a token anywhere in the line, which is useful for abbreviating frequently typed arguments.

The terms local and global describe where an alias can expand in a command, not which interpreter can use it. Both kinds are available in every interpreter. For example, a local alias only replaces the command name at the beginning of the line:

alias set ll "session list"
ll                     # Expands to: session list
help ll                # Does not expand ll

A global alias can replace a matching token at the beginning, middle, or end of the line:

alias set -g server "-rh 127.0.0.1 -rp 9999"
session connect -u admin -p admin server
# Expands to: session connect -u admin -p admin -rh 127.0.0.1 -rp 9999

If you set an alias whose name already exists, the client asks before overwriting it.

Alias configuration¶

The alias file contains separate local_aliases and global_aliases objects. Both objects are required, even when one of them is empty. Each entry maps an alias name to the command text that replaces it:

{
  "local_aliases": {
    "?": "help",
    "!": "exec"
  },
  "global_aliases": {}
}

Aliases created with alias set are local aliases, while aliases created with alias set -g are global aliases. Keep each alias name in only one object. The client loads this file when it starts, so restart the client after editing it directly.

Resource files¶

The rc command runs a batch of commands from a file in the current interpreter. This is useful for scripting a standard setup, such as bringing up a listener and a generator in one step.

rc setup.txt

A resource file contains one command per line. Blank lines and lines beginning with # are treated as comments and ignored:

# Stand up a listener
listeners
use a1b2c3d4-...
set port 8443
create
listeners

# Produce an agent
generators
use e5f6a7b8-...
set callback_port 8443
create

Commands run from a resource file execute in the current interpreter context, and their prompt is prefixed with [RC] so you can tell replayed commands apart from ones you type interactively.