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PLAN-dynamic-dev-help

IMPLEMENTATION RULES: Before implementing this plan, read and follow:

Plan: Dynamic dev-help Command List

Status: COMPLETED​

Goal: Replace static command list in dev-help with dynamically generated list using existing scan_manage_scripts function.

Created: 2026-01-15

Current State​

dev-help.sh has a hardcoded list of commands:

cat << 'EOF'
Available dev-* commands:

  dev-setup      Configure which tools to enable
  dev-services   Manage development services
  ...
EOF

Target State​

Use scan_manage_scripts from component-scanner.sh to dynamically list all available commands with their descriptions.

Phase 1: Update dev-help.sh — ✅ DONE​

Tasks​

  • Source component-scanner.sh library
  • Replace static heredoc with dynamic generation using scan_manage_scripts
  • Format output to match current style (command + description)
  • Include dev-setup manually (excluded from scanner to avoid recursion)
  • Sort by category (SYSTEM_COMMANDS first, then CONTRIBUTOR_TOOLS)
  • Test output matches expected format

Implementation​

# Source component scanner
ADDITIONS_DIR="${SCRIPT_DIR}/../additions"
source "${ADDITIONS_DIR}/lib/component-scanner.sh"

# Generate command list
echo "Available dev-* commands:"
echo ""

# Build command list from scanner
while IFS=$'\t' read -r basename script_id name desc category check; do
    printf "  %-14s %s\n" "$script_id" "$desc"
done < <(scan_manage_scripts "$SCRIPT_DIR" | sort -t$'\t' -k5,5)

# Add dev-setup (excluded from scanner)
printf "  %-14s %s\n" "dev-setup" "Interactive menu for installing tools and managing services"

echo ""
echo "Run any command with --help for more details."

Phase 2: Test and Verify — ✅ DONE​

Tasks​

  • Run dev-help and verify output
  • Compare with old static output - should show same commands
  • Verify new commands (dev-test, dev-docs) now appear automatically
  • Test that --help still works

Files to Modify​

FileChange
.devcontainer/manage/dev-help.shReplace static list with dynamic generation

Benefits​

  1. Auto-discovery: New dev-* commands automatically appear in help
  2. Single source of truth: Command descriptions come from script metadata
  3. Consistency: Same data used in dev-help and docs/commands.md
  4. No maintenance: No need to update help when adding new commands

Notes​

  • scan_manage_scripts excludes dev-welcome.sh and dev-setup.sh by design
  • Need to add dev-setup manually after the loop
  • Category sorting ensures user-facing commands appear first