cmd.Hidden is not recursive

@dearchap

My urfave/cli version is

v3@f980ca8

Checklist

Are you running the latest v3 release? The list of releases is here.
Did you check the manual for your release? The v3 manual is here
Did you perform a search about this problem? Here's the GitHub guide about searching.

Dependency Management

My project is using go modules.

Describe the bug

I am using the new Walk() feature by @dearchap to generate a tree of supported commands of my tool. This works great.

However, I want to exclude Hidden commands from the output. I can query the Hidden flag and do that, however, subcommands of a hidden command show up anyway.

To reproduce

func Tree(cmd *cli.Command) error {
	max := 20

	cmd.Walk(func(cmd *cli.Command) error {
		path := cmd.Path()
		command := path[len(path)-1]

		if len(path) == 1 || command == "help" || cmd.Hidden {
			return nil
		}

		indent := strings.Repeat("  ", len(path[1:])-1)
		space := strings.Repeat(" ", max-(len(command)+len(indent)))

		fmt.Printf("%s%s %s - %s\n", indent, command, space, cmd.Usage)

		return nil
	})

	return nil
}

Observed behavior

This prints this at the end:

[..]
version               - show esctl version information
debug                 - developer only
help-jsonpath         - show jsonpath help
  bash                - Output bash completion script
  zsh                 - Output zsh completion script
  fish                - Output fish completion script
  pwsh                - Output pwsh completion script

So, the command completion has been skipped, but its subcommands are not hidden and show up anyway.

Expected behavior

I'd like to have a way to check the parent of a cmd if it's hidden, eg:

if len(path) == 1 || command == "help" || cmd.Hidden || cmd.Parent.Hidden {
	return nil
}

Additional context

Complete code can be found here, to generate the tree, run: esctl --show-command-tree

Run `go version` and paste its output here

go version go1.25.8 linux/amd64

Run `go env` and paste its output here

AR='ar'
CC='gcc'
CGO_CFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_CPPFLAGS=''
CGO_CXXFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_ENABLED='1'
CGO_FFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_LDFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CXX='g++'
GCCGO='gccgo'
GO111MODULE=''
GOAMD64='v1'
GOARCH='amd64'
GOAUTH='netrc'
GOBIN=''
GOCACHE='/home/scip/.cache/go-build'
GOCACHEPROG=''
GODEBUG=''
GOENV='/home/scip/.config/go/env'
GOEXE=''
GOEXPERIMENT=''
GOFIPS140='off'
GOFLAGS=''
GOGCCFLAGS='-fPIC -m64 -pthread -Wl,--no-gc-sections -fmessage-length=0 -ffile-prefix-map=/tmp/go-build3184483892=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches'
GOHOSTARCH='amd64'
GOHOSTOS='linux'
GOINSECURE=''
GOMOD='/home/scip/dev/esctl/go.mod'
GOMODCACHE='/home/scip/go/pkg/mod'
GONOPROXY=''
GONOSUMDB=''
GOOS='linux'
GOPATH='/home/scip/go'
GOPRIVATE=''
GOPROXY='https://proxy.golang.org,direct'
GOROOT='/home/scip/go/pkg/mod/golang.org/toolchain@v0.0.1-go1.25.8.linux-amd64'
GOSUMDB='sum.golang.org'
GOTELEMETRY='off'
GOTELEMETRYDIR='/home/scip/.config/go/telemetry'
GOTMPDIR=''
GOTOOLCHAIN='auto'
GOTOOLDIR='/home/scip/go/pkg/mod/golang.org/toolchain@v0.0.1-go1.25.8.linux-amd64/pkg/tool/linux_amd64'
GOVCS=''
GOVERSION='go1.25.8'
GOWORK=''
PKG_CONFIG='pkg-config'

And many thanks for the cool Walk() and Path() feature, I'm loving it!

@TLINDEN

@TLINDEN Here

if len(path) == 1 || command == "help" || cmd.Hidden { return nil }

for cmd.Hidden is your intent to check the current cmd in the fn or the root cmd that Walk is called on ?

Both, I want to know if the current command is hidden as well if its root (or root of the root etc, up top) is hidden.

So, in the example of the completion command:

root (visible)
    completion (hidden)
         zsh
         bash
         fish

So, when the current command is "fish", I want to know if "completion" is hidden.

Another idea is to make the Hidden inheritable. So, if a command is hidden, its subcommands might be as well, maybe according to a setting.

Btw, my current workaround looks like this:

func Tree(cmd *cli.Command) error {
	max := 20

	return WalkVisible(cmd, func(cmd *cli.Command) error {
		path := cmd.Path()
		command := path[len(path)-1]

		if len(path) == 1 || command == "help" {
			return nil
		}

		indent := strings.Repeat("  ", len(path[1:])-1)
		space := strings.Repeat(" ", max-(len(command)+len(indent)))

		fmt.Printf("%s%s %s - %s\n", indent, command, space, cmd.Usage)

		return nil
	})
}

func WalkVisible(cmd *cli.Command, fn func(*cli.Command) error) error {
	if fn == nil {
		return nil
	}

	if cmd.Hidden {
		return nil
	}

	if err := fn(cmd); err != nil {
		return err
	}

	for _, sub := range cmd.Commands {
		if err := WalkVisible(sub, fn); err != nil {
			return err
		}
	}

	return nil
}

So I just finish the recursion if a command is hidden and ignore thereby any subcommands.

feat: add Parent() accessor to Command (fixes urfave#2372)

This tree printer would be a good addon to https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/urfave/cli/v3#pkg-examples (just saying).

Navigation Menu

Repository navigation

cmd.Hidden is not recursive #2372

My urfave/cli version is

Checklist

Dependency Management

Describe the bug

To reproduce

Observed behavior

Expected behavior

Additional context

Run `go version` and paste its output here

Run `go env` and paste its output here

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

Type

Projects

Milestone

Relationships

Development

cmd.Hidden is not recursive #2372

Description

My urfave/cli version is

Checklist

Dependency Management

Describe the bug

To reproduce

Observed behavior

Expected behavior

Additional context

Run go version and paste its output here

Run go env and paste its output here

Activity

dearchap commented on Jun 28, 2026

TLINDEN commented on Jun 29, 2026

abitrolly commented on Jul 3, 2026

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

Type

Projects

Milestone

Relationships

Development

Issue actions

Run `go version` and paste its output here

Run `go env` and paste its output here