add-cobra-version

Add Cobra Version

Add a version subcommand with version, commit hash, build date, and Go runtime version to an existing Cobra-based Go CLI, and coordinate the matching ldflags wiring across main.go, cmd/root.go, .goreleaser.yml, and the Makefile.

Workflow

1. Verify the Project

Confirm the current directory is a Go CLI project with Cobra using the main.go plus cmd package layout this skill updates:

• go.mod exists. If not, abort with a message that this skill requires an existing Go module.
• A Cobra root command exists in package cmd. Check cmd/root.go first (the canonical location used by scaffold-go-cli); if absent, inspect cmd/*.go for a package-level variable assigned to &cobra.Command{.
• Record the root command variable identifier from that declaration, for example rootCmd, cliCmd, or command. Use this identifier everywhere the templates refer to the root command.
• If Cobra commands exist only outside package cmd, abort with a message that this skill expects a cmd package root command that main.go runs via cmd.Execute().
• Read go.mod to extract the module path; needed when reasoning about ldflags -X targets.

2. Detect Current Version State

Determine which of three states the project is in. The state controls how aggressive the changes need to be.

1. No version wiring: no package-level version declaration exists, either as var version ... or as a version entry in a top-level var ( ... ) block.
2. Basic version only: a package-level version = "dev" (or similar) declaration exists, typically in main.go or cmd/root.go, but package-level commit or date declarations are missing.
3. Full version info already present: version, commit, and date package-level variables all exist, whether as single-line var declarations or entries in a top-level var ( ... ) block.

Detection commands:

# Find direct single-line declarations across the project.
grep -rnE '^[[:space:]]*var[[:space:]]+version([[:space:]=]|$)' --include='*.go' .
grep -rnE '^[[:space:]]*var[[:space:]]+commit([[:space:]=]|$)' --include='*.go' .
grep -rnE '^[[:space:]]*var[[:space:]]+date([[:space:]=]|$)' --include='*.go' .

# Also find identifiers inside top-level var (...) blocks.
grep -rnE '^[[:space:]]*version[[:space:]]*=' --include='*.go' .
grep -rnE '^[[:space:]]*commit[[:space:]]*=' --include='*.go' .
grep -rnE '^[[:space:]]*date[[:space:]]*=' --include='*.go' .