# Help Rendering

URL: /milo-cli/docs/build-clis/help/
Section: build-clis
Tags: help, argparse, cli

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Milo provides HelpRenderer, a drop-in argparse.HelpFormatter subclass that renders help output through Kida templates for styled terminal output. Usage import argparse from milo import HelpRenderer parser = argparse.ArgumentParser( prog="myapp", description="My CLI tool", formatter_class=HelpRenderer, ) parser.add_argument("--verbose", help="Enable verbose output") parser.add_argument("command", help="Command to run") parser.parse_args() When the user runs myapp --help, the output is rendered through the help.kida Kida template instead of argparse's default plain-text formatter. Customization Override the built-in help.kida template by placing your own in your template directory. The template receives the full argparse structure as context. Code Template context variables The help.kida template receives: Variable Type Description state.prog str Program name state.description str Parser description captured from argparse state.epilog str Parser epilog, when populated state.usage str Usage string, when populated state.groups tuple[dict] Captured argparse action groups state.examples tuple[dict] Optional examples supplied by help_formatter_with_examples() state.commands tuple[dict] Reserved for command summaries state.options tuple[dict] Reserved for option summaries Fallback Note Note If template rendering fails, HelpRenderer emits a UserWarning and falls back to argparse's default formatter. Your CLI will still show help, but it will not use the styled Kida template.

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Metadata:
- Author: lbliii
- Word Count: 179
- Reading Time: 1 minutes