Say that I have a system service, and I want to offer a low-level maintenance access to it.

For that purpose, I'd like to create a standalone, console application that somehow connects to server process and lets user type in commands, allow it to use auto-completion and auto-suggestion on single/double TAB press (just like linux bash shell, mysql cli, cmd.exe, and countless others), allow command line editing capabilities (history, cursor keys to move around text..), etc.

Now, it's not that much of a problem to create something like that by rolling my own from scratch, handling user input, scanning pressed keys, and doing correct actions. But, why reinvent the wheel? Is there some library/framework that helps with this kind of problems, just like readline library that offers improved command-line editing capabilities under linux?

Of course, this new "shell" would respond only to valid, domain-specific commands, and would suggest valid arguments, options, switches...

Any ideas? Thanks!