With the above, this would be "%(name)s"

No blank line here. optparse is part of Python.

"Available"

No need for parens around the format arguments when there's just one value.

This isn't needed if you make RB_COMMANDS a dictionary. You can just do:

    if RB_MAIN + args[0] in RB_COMMANDS:

No need for parens. Should use { "name": args[0] }

Should avoid map where possible. These are hard to read.

Do:

_indent = max([len(key) for key in RB_COMMANDS]) - len(RB_MAIN)

This would be nicer as:

_COMMANDS_LIST_STR = '\n'.join([
    "  %s-*s  %s" % (_indent, cmd(len(RB_MAIN):], desc)
    for cmd, desc in RB_COMMANDS.iteritems()
])

I don't understand exactly what this is for. Can you add some docstrings on what it's for exactly?

I feel like right now, this should probably just go in rb.py, until we have a good reason to give it its own file. There's no harm in other commands importing from rb.py if needed.

I'm not sure we want to split, do we? If for some reason there's "rb" elsewhere, this will break. I think instead we want to do:

if cmd.startswith(RB_MAIN):
    name = cmd[len(RB_MAIN):]

Shouldn't split the fmt into its own string. Instead, just wrap if we need to.

Also, instead of %s and passing name twice, use "%(name)s" and then have the format arguments be: % { 'name': name }

Description should be on the same line. It can then wrap. (Make sure the description aligns on each line).

Still needs to be documented to explain why it's needed and how it differs from IndentedHelpFormatter.

Do we mean to override _COMMANDS_LIST_STR, or append?

Why is this down here instead of up above? It seems an odd place for it.

Ship It!