---
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title: Write Useful Messages
collection: developer
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/developer/current/en-us/salesforcedx/sfcliplugin/guides/messages/messages.md
canonical_url: https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/platform/salesforce-cli-plugin/guide/messages.html
source_site: developer.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: acd6ace887bf305a2a9825cc6f5b7a1b20b590f6934a1840e54fa47430760476
products:
  - Salesforce CLI Plugin Developer Guide
  - salesforcedx
---
# Write Useful Messages

It’s never too early to start thinking about the messages you display for your users. Messages include:

- Command summary and description
- Flag summaries and descriptions
- Examples
- Error messages
- Interactive prompts

## Two Flags for Different Levels of Help

Because the full help for `sf` commands can be long, we provide these two flags to control how much of the content is displayed:

- `--help`: Displays all the content.
- `-h` : Displays a short form of the content. Output includes the command summary and the **USAGE** and **FLAGS** sections. It doesn’t include the long command description, examples, and long flag descriptions.

When you code your command, you automatically get these two flags too.