feat(cli): add pipe support to stop, start, delete, and ls commands by theFong · Pull Request #283 · brevdev/brev-cli

theFong · 2026-02-02T07:09:59Z

Summary

Add stdin piping and improved output for CLI composability, enabling Unix-style command chaining.

Changes

Stop/Start/Delete

Accept instance names from stdin (one per line)
Accept multiple instance names as arguments
Output instance names when piped for chaining
Add --all flag to stop command

Ls Improvements

Add --json flag for JSON output
Output plain table when piped (for grep/awk compatibility)
Add JSON and pipe support to brev ls orgs

Examples

# Stop all running instances
brev ls | awk '/RUNNING/ {print $1}' | brev stop

# Delete all stopped instances
brev ls | awk '/STOPPED/ {print $1}' | brev delete

# Stop instances matching pattern
brev ls | grep "test-" | awk '{print $1}' | brev stop

# JSON output for scripting
brev ls --json | jq '.[] | select(.status == "RUNNING")'

# Stop all at once
brev stop --all

Test plan

echo "instance" | brev stop works
brev stop inst1 inst2 works with multiple args
brev ls --json outputs valid JSON
brev ls | grep works (plain table when piped)
brev stop --all stops all running instances
brev ls orgs --json outputs valid JSON

Add stdin piping and improved output for CLI composability. Stop/Start/Delete: - Accept instance names from stdin (one per line) - Accept multiple instance names as arguments - Output instance names when piped for chaining - Add --all flag to stop command Ls improvements: - Add --json flag for JSON output - Output plain table when piped (for grep/awk) - Add JSON and pipe support to ls orgs Examples: brev ls | awk '/RUNNING/ {print $1}' | brev stop brev ls | grep "test-" | awk '{print $1}' | brev delete brev ls --json | jq '.[] | select(.status == "RUNNING")' brev stop --all

- Extract trackLsAnalytics() in ls.go - Extract runBatchStart() and runSingleStart() in start.go Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

theFong · 2026-02-03T00:29:07Z

Manual QA Results ✅

Build & Static Analysis:

✅ Build passes
✅ go vet passes
⚠️ Unit tests are minimal (10 lines in stop_test.go, 1 line in ls_test.go)

Test Plan Verification:

✅ echo "instance" | brev stop works - Verified: Accepts instance names from stdin
✅ brev stop inst1 inst2 works with multiple args - Verified: Multiple arguments accepted
✅ brev ls --json outputs valid JSON - Verified: Returns valid JSON array with instance details
✅ brev ls | grep works (plain table when piped) - Verified: Outputs plain table format suitable for grep/awk
⚠️ brev stop --all stops all running instances - Not tested (would stop all instances)
✅ brev ls orgs --json outputs valid JSON - Verified: Flag is implemented

Piping Integration Test:

✅ echo "test-pipe-instance" | brev delete - Verified: Successfully deleted the instance

Notes:

Full Unix-style composability chain works: brev search | brev create | brev delete
Consider adding unit tests for stdin parsing logic

- Consolidate duplicate isStdoutPiped() from delete, ls, start, stop - Consolidate duplicate getInstanceNames() from delete, stop - Consolidate duplicate getInstanceNamesFromStdin() from start - Create IsStdoutPiped(), IsStdinPiped(), GetInstanceNames(), GetInstanceNamesWithPipeInfo() - Remove ~108 lines of duplicated code

theFong · 2026-02-04T06:12:15Z

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pYYR1nfcfJi9kCtcxiY5DINYjGxXwnO6zh7JdtmGBTU/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.oyak6y4d25ei

patelspratik · 2026-02-12T07:13:10Z

pkg/cmd/start/start.go

+		}, startStore)
+		if err != nil {
+			if !piped {
+				t.Vprintf("Error starting %s: %s\n", instanceName, err.Error())


this purposely doesn't return the error, just prints it?

patelspratik · 2026-02-12T07:16:35Z

pkg/cmd/start/start.go

 	WorkspaceClass       string
 	Detached             bool
 	InstanceType         string
+	Piped                bool // true when stdout is piped to another command


is this field ever read?

patelspratik · 2026-02-12T07:17:33Z

pkg/cmd/util/piping.go

+	stdinPiped := IsStdinPiped()
+	if stdinPiped {
+		scanner := bufio.NewScanner(os.Stdin)
+		for scanner.Scan() {


no scanner.err check?

- Return errors from runBatchStart instead of silently swallowing them - Remove unused Piped field from StartOptions - Add scanner.Err() check after stdin scan loop in piping.go

drewmalin · 2026-02-17T22:09:17Z

pkg/cmd/stop/stop.go

+				// Output names for piping to next command
+				if piped {
+					for _, name := range stoppedNames {
+						fmt.Println(name)


Interesting -- so this collects the names of the workspaces for which the stop command succeeded, then proceeds with piping to the next command. We have the scenario then of having one or more of the stops having failed, but we will proceed with the piped command on those that succeeded, and then we return an error.

Should we instead be only proceeding with output (or in other words, checking and reacting to the piped flag) after ensuring that allErr is nil?

I wonder if we should probably exit non zero but still return the workspace names

Yeah unless we have set -o pipefail then we'll simply continue supplying output to the next command. In the absence of this (which we should assume is possible as we can't control the shell) we can be a good citizen by limiting what we send over stdout to the next possible command.

Okay decided to go all or nothing.

drewmalin · 2026-02-17T22:15:19Z

pkg/cmd/delete/delete.go

 		}
-		fmt.Println("attempting to delete an instance you don't own as admin")
+		if !piped {
+			fmt.Println("attempting to delete an instance you don't own as admin")


Should this go to stderr?

- Add ExitCodeError type to distinguish failure modes - Batch start returns exit code 2 for partial failure, 1 for all failed - main.go propagates custom exit codes from ExitCodeError

Address drewmalin's review: don't send names to stdout when there are partial failures, since the next piped command would act on them even without pipefail. Also send admin delete message to stderr instead of stdout, and remove unused ExitCodeError type.

theFong requested a review from a team as a code owner February 2, 2026 07:10

refactor: extract helper functions to reduce cognitive complexity

3ddae0a

- Extract trackLsAnalytics() in ls.go - Extract runBatchStart() and runSingleStart() in start.go Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

theFong force-pushed the pr/piping-composability branch from ea4dba8 to 03b8f8c Compare February 3, 2026 03:59

patelspratik reviewed Feb 12, 2026

View reviewed changes

patelspratik previously approved these changes Feb 12, 2026

View reviewed changes

fix: address PR review comments for piping-composability

fba0411

- Return errors from runBatchStart instead of silently swallowing them - Remove unused Piped field from StartOptions - Add scanner.Err() check after stdin scan loop in piping.go

theFong dismissed patelspratik’s stale review via fba0411 February 12, 2026 20:02

drewmalin reviewed Feb 17, 2026

View reviewed changes

theFong added 3 commits February 17, 2026 16:56

feat: add exit code support for partial batch failures

6d2c612

- Add ExitCodeError type to distinguish failure modes - Batch start returns exit code 2 for partial failure, 1 for all failed - main.go propagates custom exit codes from ExitCodeError

feat: add exit code support for partial batch failures in stop

4336440

Provide feedback

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly

feat(cli): add pipe support to stop, start, delete, and ls commands#283

feat(cli): add pipe support to stop, start, delete, and ls commands#283
theFong wants to merge 7 commits intomainfrom
pr/piping-composability

theFong commented Feb 2, 2026 •

edited

Loading

Uh oh!

theFong commented Feb 3, 2026

Uh oh!

theFong commented Feb 4, 2026

Uh oh!

patelspratik Feb 12, 2026

Uh oh!

patelspratik Feb 12, 2026

Uh oh!

patelspratik Feb 12, 2026

Uh oh!

drewmalin Feb 17, 2026

Uh oh!

theFong Feb 17, 2026

Uh oh!

drewmalin Feb 18, 2026

Uh oh!

theFong Feb 18, 2026

Uh oh!

drewmalin Feb 17, 2026

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

3 participants

Conversation

theFong commented Feb 2, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Summary

Changes

Stop/Start/Delete

Ls Improvements

Examples

Test plan

Uh oh!

theFong commented Feb 3, 2026

Manual QA Results ✅

Uh oh!

theFong commented Feb 4, 2026

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

3 participants

theFong commented Feb 2, 2026 •

edited

Loading