4.0.0-b3 (2026-04-18)

What's Changed

Same as 4.0.0b2 other than:

• Breaking Changes
  • All parsers used with cmd2 commands must be an instance of Cmd2ArgumentParser or a child
    class of it.
  • Removed set_ap_completer_type() and get_ap_completer_type() since ap_completer_type is
    now a public member of Cmd2ArgumentParser.
  • Moved set_parser_prog() to Cmd2ArgumentParser.update_prog().
  • Renamed cmd2_handler to cmd2_subcmd_handler in the argparse.Namespace for clarity.
  • Removed Cmd2AttributeWrapper class. argparse.Namespace objects passed to command functions
    now contain direct attributes for cmd2_statement and cmd2_subcmd_handler.
  • Renamed cmd2/command_definition.py to cmd2/command_set.py.
  • Removed Cmd.doc_header and the with_default_category decorator. Help categorization is now
    driven by the DEFAULT_CATEGORY class variable (see Simplified command categorization in
    the Enhancements section below for details).
  • Removed Cmd.undoc_header since all commands are now considered categorized.
  • Renamed Cmd.cmd_func() to Cmd.get_command_func().
  • cmd2 no longer sets a default title for a subparsers group. If you desire a title, you will
    need to pass one in like this parser.add_subparsers(title="subcommands"). This is standard
    argparse behavior.
  • TextGroup is now a standalone Rich renderable.
    • Removed formatter_creator parameter from TextGroup.__init__().
    • Removed Cmd2ArgumentParser.create_text_group() method.
  • argparse and Rich integration refactoring:
    • Renamed argparse_custom module to argparse_utils.
    • Moved the following classes from argparse_utils to rich_utils:
      • Cmd2HelpFormatter
      • ArgumentDefaultsCmd2HelpFormatter
      • MetavarTypeCmd2HelpFormatter
      • RawDescriptionCmd2HelpFormatter
      • RawTextCmd2HelpFormatter
      • TextGroup
    • Replaced the global APP_THEME constant in rich_utils.py with get_theme() and
      set_theme() functions to support lazy initialization and safer in-place updates of the
      theme.
• Enhancements
  • New cmd2.Cmd methods
    • ppretty: a cmd2-compatible replacement for rich.pretty.pprint()
  • Simplified command categorization:
    • By default, all commands in a class are grouped under its DEFAULT_CATEGORY.
    • Individual commands can still be manually moved using the with_category() decorator.
    • For more details and examples, see the Help documentation and the
      examples/default_categories.py file.
  • CommandSet is now a generic class, which allows developers to parameterize it with their
    specific cmd2.Cmd subclass (e.g.,class MyCommandSet(CommandSet[MyApp]):). This provides
    full type hints and IDE autocompletion for self._cmd without needing to override and cast
    the property.

Full Changelog: 4.0.0-b2...4.0.0-b3