tldr-pages/tldr

Add mnemonics to commands that only have short options available

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#16,218 opened on Apr 21, 2025

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help wanted

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Description

There are quite a lot of commands that do not provide long options and are thus a black box to new users. Mnemonics should help with that. A trick to finding pages that contain a short option is grep -r " -[a-zA-Z][^a-zA-Z]" This does not however find pages that have two short options groupled together like -ab

Mnemonics style guide: https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr/blob/main/contributing-guides/style-guide.md#short-option-mnemonics

Also: If you manage to find a case where the short option isn't derived from the long option, for example {{[-n|--dry-run]}}, add a mnemonic for that.

Contributor guide

Research direction
Find tldr pages that have short options (e.g., v) but lack mnemonics. Use grep r " [a zA Z][^a zA Z]" to identify candidates, then check each page's syntax for missing short option mnemonics. Add mnemonics following the style guide at https://github.com/tldr pages/tldr/blob/main/contributing guides/style guide.md#short option mnemonics. Also look for cases where the short option is not derived from the long option (e.g., n vs dry run) and add mnemonics there.
Tech stack
None
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Documentation
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
2
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Mostly clear
Prerequisites
Gitcommand line basics
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
85