Just like verbs are actions in a sentence and adverbs modifiy verbs, so in the newt tool, commands are actions and flags modify actions. A command can have subcommands. Arguments to commands and subcommands, with appropriate flags, dictate the execution and result of a command.
For instance, in the example below, the newt command has the subcommand target set in which the argument ‘my_target1’ is the target whose attribute, app, is set to ‘@apache-mynewt-core/hw/bsp/nrf52dk’
newt target set my_target1 app=@apache-mynewt-core/hw/bsp/nrf52dk
Global flags work uniformly across newt commands. Consider the flag -v, --verbose, It works both for command and subcommands, to generate verbose output. Likewise, the help flag -h or --help, to print helpful messsages.
A command may additionally take flags specific to it. For example, the -n flag instructs newt debug not to start GDB from command line.
newt debug <target-name> -n
In addition to the Newt Tool Manual in docs, command-line help is available for each command (and subcommand), through the -h or --help options.
newt target --help Commands to create, delete, configure, and query targets Usage: newt target [flags] newt target [command] Available Commands: amend Add, change, or delete values for multi-value target variables config View or populate a target's system configuration copy Copy target create Create a target delete Delete target dep View target's dependency graph revdep View target's reverse-dependency graph set Set target configuration variable show View target configuration variables Global Flags: -h, --help Help for newt commands -j, --jobs int Number of concurrent build jobs (default 8) -l, --loglevel string Log level (default "WARN") -o, --outfile string Filename to tee output to -q, --quiet Be quiet; only display error output -s, --silent Be silent; don't output anything -v, --verbose Enable verbose output when executing commands Use "newt target [command] --help" for more information about a command.