How to make a command line executable an application

Since OS X comes from a unix heritage, you will want to store system files in /usr/local/bin for command line applications and scripts that belong to the system locally and not to a specific user. You may need to create this directory first by running:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin

You can move any command line application to that folder by running:

sudo mv my-binary /usr/local/bin/

To make sure that /usr/local/bin is part of your standard search path in Terminal, check the content of /etc/paths and add it if necessary:

grep -w /usr/local/bin /etc/paths || sudo sh -c 'echo /usr/local/bin >> /etc/paths'

Some users make a second directory for user level scripts, but this is even more subject to personal preference.

I typically make a bin directory in each user folder and then hide it from Finder - but you can make that decision yourself whether you want it hidden:

 mkdir ~/bin
 chflags hidden ~/bin

In this case, you'll want to have each user's path include this location by modifying the shell startup scripts (~/.bash_profile for bash which is the standard shell)

 export PATH=$PATH:~/bin

or by hard coding the path to each app when you run it.

Wish I could claim credit for this one, but I found it buried in https://github.com/chcokr/osx-init/blob/master/install.sh

This worked on my 10.10 headless VM without a logged in UI. Updates applied for compatibility with at least 10.9-10.14

touch /tmp/.com.apple.dt.CommandLineTools.installondemand.in-progress;
PROD=$(softwareupdate -l |
  grep "\*.*Command Line" |
  head -n 1 | awk -F"*" '{print $2}' |
  sed -e 's/^ *//' |
  tr -d '\n')
softwareupdate -i "$PROD" --verbose
rm /tmp/.com.apple.dt.CommandLineTools.installondemand.in-progress

This presumes you only have 1 result to softwareupdate -l | grep "\*.*Command Line" - if this returns multiple versions, you might need more specific logic. (I dont have a repro case)

one variation that seems to work (limited testing) on 10.10-10.14 (10.9 doesn't return an osx version number in the cli tools name..so this doesn't work there):

PROD=$(softwareupdate -l |
 grep "\*.*Command Line.*$(sw_vers -productVersion|awk -F. '{print $1"."$2}')" |
 head -n 1 | awk -F"*" '{print $2}' |
 sed -e 's/^ *//' |
 tr -d '\n')

a few example results:

* Command Line Tools (OS X Mavericks)-6.2
* Command Line Tools (OS X 10.10) for Xcode-7.2
* Command Line Tools (macOS El Capitan version 10.11) for Xcode-8.2
* Command Line Tools (macOS High Sierra version 10.13) for Xcode-10.1
* Command Line Tools (macOS Mojave version 10.14) for Xcode-10.1