CLI tools and distribution

It’s time to reassess how our CLI tools are named and distributed.

• At the moment, we compile separate binaries for all our CLI tools (mitmproxy, mitmweb, mitmdump, pathod and pathoc). For each command, we bundle a complete self-contained interpreter and all its dependencies. This significantly bloats our distribution.
• We need more commands. I’m speccing out a separate command for managing and installing mitmproxy addons. I also think we have a “missing command” for processing flows and exiting, without starting a proxy. Conflating this use case with mitmdump has caused significant complexity and confusion.

All of this together has tipped us over to a point where a single-binary distribution makes sense. See previous discussion in #1526.

Proposal

I propose that we roll up all of our tools in a single command called mx, which is invoked as follows:

• mx --flags - equivalent to current mitmproxy --flags. This command takes no arguments, so can be the top-level.
• mx dump args - equivalent to mitmdump args. I think there’s an argument for renaming this - the analogy with tcpdump grows tenuous, and “dump” is not really the most apt description of what the tool does.
• mx web args - equivalent to mitmweb args
• mx pathod args - equivalent to pathod args
• mx pathoc args - equivalent to pathoc args

In the next iteration, I would also like to add commands like:

• mx addon args - Addon installation and management (mx addon install, mx addon list, etc.)
• mx proc args - Command to process a set of flows and exit, used for conversion, client replay, etc. I’m not attached to the proc name here, so lets not argue about that one yet.

[madt1m]

We could follow the e.g. netcat approach here! Like, mitmproxy or mx (or similar) should both be valid.

A bit related to this, we could create an autocomplete file (for bash, zsh, fish etc.) that would help with commands & their args etc.

Good shot!

[cortesi]

What about something like this as a shorter command that still relates more strongly to the brand?

mitm --flags
mitm dump args
mitm web args
mitm addon args
mitm proc args