Build a Type-Safe API Client CLI with Node.js

Build a Type-Safe API Client CLI with Node.js Every developer has APIs they interact with regularly — GitHub, Stripe, Vercel, your company's internal services. Wrapping these APIs in a CLI tool saves time, enables scripting, and makes complex API workflows accessible from the terminal. This article shows how to build a CLI that wraps any REST API with type safety, authentication management, and response formatting — patterns you can apply to any API. What We're Building apicli — a framework for building API client CLIs that handles: Authentication (API keys, OAuth tokens, bearer tokens) Request building with typed parameters Response formatting (JSON, table, minimal) Pagination handling Error mapping from HTTP status codes to helpful messages Credential storage Step 1: Credential Management Store API credentials securely in the user's home directory: // lib/credentials.ts import { readFile , writeFile , mkdir , chmod } from ' node:fs/promises ' ; import { join } from ' node:path ' ; im