# Inside the Gluegun Toolbox

Let's explore the inside of the famous Gluegun "Toolbox" (or "Context" as it's sometimes called).

```js
module.exports = {
  name: 'dostuff',
  alias: 'd',
  run: async function(toolbox) {
    // great! now what?
  },
}
```

Here's what's available inside the `toolbox` object you see all over Gluegun.

| name               | provides the...                                    | 3rd party                      |
| ------------------ | -------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ |
| **meta**           | information about the currently running CLI        |                                |
| **config**         | configuration options from the app or plugin       |                                |
| **filesystem**     | ability to copy, move & delete files & directories | fs-jetpack                     |
| **http**           | ability to talk to the web                         | apisauce                       |
| **parameters**     | command line arguments and options                 | yargs-parser                   |
| **patching**       | manipulating file contents easily                  | fs-jetpack                     |
| **print**          | tools to print output to the command line          | colors, ora                    |
| **prompt**         | tools to acquire extra command line user input     | enquirer                       |
| **semver**         | utilities for working with semantic versioning     | semver                         |
| **strings**        | some string helpers like case conversion, etc.     | lodash & ramda                 |
| **system**         | ability to execute                                 | node-which, execa, cross-spawn |
| **template**       | code generation from templates                     | ejs                            |
| **packageManager** | ability to add or remove packages with Yarn/NPM    |                                |

The `toolbox` has "drawers" full of useful tools for building CLIs. For example, the `toolbox.meta.version` function can be invoked like this:

```js
module.exports = {
  name: 'dostuff',
  alias: 'd',
  run: async function(toolbox) {
    // use them like this...
    toolbox.print.info(toolbox.meta.version())

    // or destructure!
    const {
      print: { info },
      meta: { version },
    } = toolbox
    info(version())
  },
}
```

To learn more about each tool, explore the rest of the `toolbox-*.md` files in this folder.

## Accessing Tools Directly

You can access almost all of Gluegun's toolbox tools without running a command. This is useful when you'd like to use these tools outside of a CLI context or when doing some really specialized CLI.

```js
const { print, filesystem, strings } = require('gluegun')
// or
const { print } = require('gluegun/print')
const { filesystem } = require('gluegun/filesystem')
const { strings } = require('gluegun/strings')
const { packageManager } = require('gluegun/package-manager')

print.info(`Hey, I'm Gluegun!`)
filesystem.dir('/tmp/jamon')
print.error(strings.isBlank(''))
```