[utkarshalpha]

What type of PR is this?

• bug

What this PR does / why we need it:

• Makes HideHelpCommand inherit through the command hierarchy, matching the existing behavior of HideHelp.
• Prevents nested commands from re-adding the built-in help command when an ancestor disabled it.
• Extends the existing test through two nested command levels while confirming --help remains available.

Which issue(s) this PR fixes:

Fixes #2129

Testing

• go test ./... -count=1
• go run scripts/build.go generate
• go run scripts/build.go vet
• go run scripts/build.go check-binary-size
• go run scripts/build.go gfmrun

Release Notes

Make HideHelpCommand apply to nested subcommands.

[dearchap]

Reviewed the change. Looks correct — the new test fails without the fix and passes with it, and test suite/vet/gofmt are clean. Two notes below (one behavior change to confirm, one minor doc touch-up).

[dearchap]

Heads-up: this is a behavior change for nested trees, not just a bug fix. hideHelpCommand() walks the whole ancestor chain, so once any ancestor sets HideHelpCommand: true, a descendant cannot re-enable the built-in help command — even by explicitly setting HideHelpCommand: false on itself. Before this change, app config help still worked when only the root hid the command, because each command's own field value controlled the append. If that was intentional (matching HideHelp inheritance semantics), consider noting it explicitly in the release notes.

[dearchap]

Minor: with this change HideHelpCommand now propagates to all descendants, but its doc comment in command.go still reads // Ignored if HideHelp is true. only. A short note that the value applies to this command and its subcommands would prevent confusion about why a nested command lost its help command.

[utkarshalpha]

Yes, that's intentional. HideHelp already works this way, it walks up the parent chain, so a subcommand setting HideHelp: false under a hidden root doesn't get help back either. This just makes HideHelpCommand behave the same as HideHelp.

I added two tests for it so it doesn't get flipped back by accident later.

Doc comment updated as you asked. I also had to update godoc-current.txt and testdata/godoc-v3.x.txt, since CI compares those against the source.

For the release note, maybe something like: HideHelpCommand is now inherited by subcommands, same as HideHelp. If a command sets it, the help command is hidden for that command and everything under it.

[dearchap]

LGTM. The fix is correct: hideHelpCommand() mirrors hideHelp() by walking the parent chain, and the parent pointers are guaranteed to be set before ensureHelp() runs for any subcommand (setupDefaults sets direct children parents before ensureHelp; setupCommandGraph uses a pre-order Walk). Verified locally: full suite + race pass, vet/gofmt clean, generated godoc matches the updated godoc-current.txt and testdata/godoc-v3.x.txt.