Using litecli version 1.10.1, installed with pipx on linux; base python is a pyenv-installed 3.10.10.

Given the following contents of ~/.config/litecli/config:

[startup_commands]
commands = ".tables"

loading litecli fails:

.
Could not execute all startup commands:
Not connected to database.
(none)>

If the config is changed to add a trailing comma:

[startup_commands]
commands = ".tables",

then the .tables command is correctly executed.

I suspect this is because without the comma, python is iterating the over the string ".tables", not the list [".tables",]:

Adding a print above L592 confirms.
Without a comma:
self.startup_commands={'commands': '.tables'}

With a comma:
self.startup_commands={'commands': ['.tables']}