AxilJS Decorator CLI Commands

The AxilJS CLI provides a dedicated decorator command group for discovering, inspecting, searching, and analyzing semantic decorators.

The decorator tooling exposes the AxilJS decorator catalog directly from the terminal, allowing developers to explore decorator capabilities and semantic relationships without manually inspecting framework source code.

Start the decorator command group with:

List Decorators#

List all decorators available in the AxilJS decorator catalog:

The catalog organizes decorators by semantic category and provides metadata describing their intended usage and behavior.

This is useful when you want to discover available decorators before implementing a feature.

Filter Decorators by Category#

Use --category to filter the decorator catalog:

For example, list security-related decorators:

You can also explore other categories:

Category filtering makes it easier to discover decorators relevant to a particular application concern.

Available Decorator Categories#

The AxilJS decorator catalog covers multiple areas of application development:

• HTTP
• Security
• Data
• Reliability
• Concurrency
• Distributed
• Messaging
• Caching
• Observability
• Compliance
• Runtime
• AI
• Validation
• Contract
• Execution
• Workflow

Use the categories command to display the available categories and their decorator counts:

Inspect Decorator Information#

Use info to inspect the semantic metadata for an individual decorator:

For example:

You can inspect other decorators in the same way:

The info command exposes the decorator's semantic metadata, including:

• Description
• Purpose
• Why to use it
• When to use it
• When not to use it
• Category
• Supported targets
• Options
• Runtime behavior
• Metadata produced
• Metadata consumed
• Composition relationships
• Conflicts
• Security impact
• Performance impact
• Examples

This makes info useful when you need to understand not only what a decorator does, but also how it interacts with other parts of the AxilJS runtime.

Search the Decorator Catalog#

Use search to find decorators using a text query:

For example:

Other useful searches include:

The search operation can search across decorator names, descriptions, purposes, categories, and related metadata.

This makes it useful when you know what capability you need but do not know the exact decorator name.

Check Decorator Composition#

Use check to inspect decorators used in a source file:

For example:

The command identifies decorator composition issues and conflicts based on the semantic relationships defined in the decorator catalog.

This is particularly useful when a declaration contains multiple decorators whose behavior or metadata may interact.

A typical workflow is:

Source File
     │
     ▼
axil decorator check
     │
     ▼
Read Decorator Metadata
     │
     ├── Composition
     └── Conflicts

Generate a Metadata Graph#

Use graph to generate a decorator metadata graph for a source file:

For example:

The graph represents relationships between decorators and their associated metadata.

This can help developers understand how semantic decorators compose within an AxilJS application.

A graph can be especially useful when a declaration contains multiple decorators with relationships such as metadata production, metadata consumption, composition, or conflicts.

Categories Command#

The categories command displays the available decorator categories:

The output provides a high-level view of the decorator catalog and the number of decorators available in each category.

Use this command when exploring the overall scope of the AxilJS semantic decorator system.

Recommended Decorator Workflow#

When working with an unfamiliar decorator, start by searching the catalog:

Inspect a relevant decorator:

To explore all decorators within a category:

After applying decorators to a source file, check their composition:

You can then inspect the resulting metadata relationships:

The workflow can be summarized as:

Search
  │
  ▼
Discover Decorator
  │
  ▼
Inspect Metadata
  │
  ▼
Apply Decorator
  │
  ▼
Check Composition
  │
  ▼
Analyze Metadata Graph

Command Reference#

Semantic Decorator Tooling#

The AxilJS decorator CLI makes the framework's semantic decorator system available directly from the terminal.

Instead of manually searching framework source code, developers can use the CLI to discover decorators, inspect their semantic metadata, search by capability, check decorator composition, identify conflicts, and analyze metadata relationships within application source files.