Run and Configure Commands

This guide describes invocation, project selection, configuration files, and logging shared by all maintenance commands. For command-specific workflows, choose a guide from Use the Maintenance Tool. Follow repository setup if the executable is not installed yet.

Find and Run a Command

List commands and inspect the installed version:

./erbsland-core-tool --help
./erbsland-core-tool --version

Put the command name before its options. In the examples below, replace COMMAND with a name from the command overview:

./erbsland-core-tool COMMAND --help
./erbsland-core-tool COMMAND

Help, version information, and the command overview work without a project or configuration file. A command’s help describes its own options; options such as --check are not available on every command.

The examples use the macOS/Linux root shortcut. On Windows, replace ./erbsland-core-tool with tool\bin\erbsland-core-tool.exe. The shortcut runs the installed Release copy; see Build and Test the Maintenance Tool to run a version under development.

Select the Repository

By default, the tool searches upward from your working directory for the Erbsland Core project root. You can invoke it from a repository subdirectory and still use project-relative input and output paths. To select a checkout explicitly, use --project:

./erbsland-core-tool COMMAND --project /path/to/erbsland-core

The selected directory must itself be the project root. An explicit selection does not search its parent directories.

Configure a Command

The default configuration is tool/conf/erbsland-core-tool.elcl in the selected project. It includes shared settings from tool/conf/misc, source settings from tool/conf/source, and command settings from tool/conf/tools. Each command’s usage guide identifies the files you normally edit and links to its complete configuration reference. For generated copyright and license notices, see Customize Generated Notices.

Use --config to select another configuration file inside the project:

./erbsland-core-tool COMMAND --config tool/conf/erbsland-core-tool.elcl

Path	Relative to
--project and --config	Your current working directory
Command input and output paths	The selected project root
Configuration includes	The configuration file containing the include
--log-file	Your current working directory

Configuration and command data must remain inside the selected project. Ordinary input and output paths cannot traverse symlinks or Windows reparse points; output directories must exist. Log files are independent of project data and may be outside the project. See Framework Reference for exact access checks and include handling.

The complete configuration must parse, but only shared settings, the selected command, and its required sources are validated for execution.

See More Detail

The console normally shows information, warnings, and errors. Use --verbose (-v) to include trace messages, or --log-file to append all log levels to a file:

./erbsland-core-tool COMMAND --verbose
./erbsland-core-tool COMMAND --log-file tool-run.log

File log entries include a timestamp. Trace messages reach the log file even without --verbose. Successful execution returns exit status zero; failures produce a diagnostic and a nonzero status. The command’s usage guide explains failures that require a particular follow-up, such as regenerating stale output.