You can definitely provide an update() callback function in a recipe that uses the manual interface. Custom recipes are very useful in general, as the Python API is much more powerful than the recipe arguments.
Ultimately we decided to avoid trying to cram every combination of possible options into the built-in CLI. If you make the CLI too complicated, you end up programming via the CLI, and learning too many arbitrary details. At some point it’s better to switch over to Python. The source for the built-in recipes is provided with prodigy, and you can find starter custom recipes here: https://github.com/explosion/prodigy-recipes