Grind Console

Grind Console is Kona’s in-app command line. After you create a project with kona new and cd into it, almost every day-to-day task goes through the local script:

./grind serve
./grind make:controller Post
./grind make:command SendDigest
./grind list
./grind help

kona new writes ./grind (and grind.bat on Windows) into the project root. There is no separate global grind install. Creating applications is always:

kona new my-app

From anywhere under an app tree you can also use the global proxy: kona grind <args…> — see Running commands.

If you are browsing samples/hello-kotlin or samples/hello-java inside the Kona repository, those folders are monorepo modules and do not include ./grind. Run them with ./gradlew :hello-kotlin:run (or :hello-java:run) from the repo root, or create a real app with kona new to get Grind Console. Details: Installation.

What Grind Console is

Grind Console is the product name for the console surface. The CLI binary you type is still ./grind (or kona grind …). Behind that script:

1. Gradle runs a grind task with kona-grind on the classpath for this project’s dependency versions.
2. GrindApplication parses arguments, builds a GrindIO (quiet/verbose), discovers custom commands, and dispatches built-ins or your ConsoleCommand classes.
3. Custom commands bind signature tokens to input, then run handle() and return an exit code.

Built-ins (serve, migrate, queue, schedule, generators, …) are wired inside GrindApplication. Custom commands are discovered from META-INF/kona/commands and from compiled app outputs under build/.

Why two CLIs?

Tool	Scope	Typical use
kona (global)	Machine-wide	kona new, or kona grind as a proxy into an app (kona grind install …, serve, …)
./grind (per app)	One project	Serve, install packages, generate code, migrate, queue, schedule, your commands

If you type ./grind new …, Grind Console reminds you to use kona new instead and exits with status 1.

Learn the console

Guide	Topic
Creating commands	make:command, signatures, discovery, isolation, pitfalls
Running commands	CLI flags, list/help, Grind.call, kona grind, scheduling
Console IO & prompts	ConsoleIO, GrindIO, tables, prompts, exit codes
Built-in commands	Catalog of every shipped ./grind command
steam	Interactive REPL (./grind steam)

Testing Grind Console with ConsoleTester lives under HTTP & console tests.

Global flags

These apply to the whole Grind Console process (and to custom commands that use the bound GrindIO):

Flag	Effect
-v / --verbose	Verbose diagnostics (GrindIO.verbose)
-q / --quiet	Suppress normal stdout; errors still print on stderr

Other common flags (--base=, --bootstrap=, --help, --isolated) are documented where they apply — see Running commands and Creating commands.

Not available today

Document only what ships. Gaps you should not expect from Grind Console yet:

• No make:brew (or other Brew generators) in the kona-grind dispatcher — Brew scaffolding, if any, is separate from this catalog.
• Custom commands do not receive an injected Application automatically; boot the app yourself (or call APIs that already have a container) when you need services.
• There is no interactive command “wizard” beyond Prompts, and no command middleware / event bus for console runs.
• Built-in help for generators is usage strings and ./grind list summaries — there is no separate man-page system.

Prefer omitting unshipped features over documenting them as current.