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deeplabcut/cli.py is currently stale/unmaintained/outdated and not integrated with the PyTorch-first API. The Click-based CLI exposes workflow commands (create_new_project, extract_frames, train_network, analyze_videos, etc.) that currently bypass deeplabcut.compat and call pose_estimation_tensorflow directly, so they do not follow engine selection used by the public API.
In addition:
cli.py is not really documented or tested
click is not declared in pyproject.toml dependencies
version banner prints deeplabcut v0.0., and --verbose is unused
Proposed direction
As our documentation primarily mentions the python API and GUI as entry points, we should consider removing cli.py. It is currently not functional and can lead to confusion.
We could decide (e.g. after dropping TensorFlow) to create a new command line interface that matches the PyTorch API. This does not necessarily have to use Click - there are good alternatives (e.g. Typer).
I think this came up before, let's check how we can cleanly handle this. (I would assume that as long as this is clearly part of TF deprecation, it would be fine)
Activity
C-Achard commentedon Jun 24, 2026
I think this came up before, let's check how we can cleanly handle this. (I would assume that as long as this is clearly part of TF deprecation, it would be fine)
MMathisLab commentedon Nov 3, 2026
done, I think?
C-Achard commentedon Nov 5, 2026
@deruyter92 has an upgrade planned in #3456 which isn't merged yet