Passing command line arguments in lein repl - clojure

Question

I have a main function declaration which accepts command line arguments
(defn -main [& args]
(let [options (cli/parse-opts args [["-k", "--key KEY","Secret key"]
["-u", "--user USER", "User name"]])]
(println user key)))
I am trying to load this in lein repl for debugging, but unable to figure out how to pass arguments over REPL.
I have tried multiple methods to pass the args over repl including
(-main "key-val" "user-val") (prints nil nil)
(-main ("key-val" "user-val")) (prints nil nil)
I tried multiple failing attempts as well trying to pass a list or vector which throw cast errors.

Answer 1

you have defined params with keys "-k" and "-u", but haven't passed the keys to the function, so the parser won't be able to guess what do you expect it to get. The working version is like this:
user> (defn -main [& args]
(let [options (cli/parse-opts args [["-k", "--key KEY","Secret key"]
["-u", "--user USER", "User name"]])
{:keys [key user]} (:options options)]
[key user]))
#'user/-main
user> (-main "-k" "key-val" "-u" "user-val")
;;=> ["key-val" "user-val"]
user> (-main "--key" "key-val" "--user" "user-val")
;;=> ["key-val" "user-val"]

Answer 2

First, note that user and key are not bound to result of parse-opts.
parse-opts returns a map where these options are under the key :options.
Let's bind the result as follows:
(defn -main [& args]
(let [options (parse-opts args [["-k", "--key KEY","Secret key"]
["-u", "--user USER", "User name"]])
user (get-in options [:options :user])
key (get-in options [:options :key])]
(println user key)))
Your parse-opts call specifies that you expect named arguments, i.e., options to parse. A call like the following works from REPL:
(-main "-k a" "-u b") ; prints "b a"
Note that if you specify positional arguments, they are under the key :arguments. After changing the example to print the value bound to options ((println options)), your example call would work like so:
(-main "key-val" "user-val") ; {:arguments [key-val user-val] :options {} ...}
So the call was made without options, that is, without specifying named arguments.