devkit-cli

devkit

A zero-dependency Swiss Army knife for everyday developer tasks.

devkit bundles the small utilities you keep reaching for — hashing, UUIDs, base64, JSON formatting, password generation, timestamp conversion — into a single fast CLI with no node_modules to install.

$ devkit hash "hello world"
sha256  b94d27b9934d3e08a52e52d7da7dabfac484efe37a5380ee9088f7ace2efcde9

Why

Most of these tasks have a one-liner solution, but the one-liner is different every time and always slightly wrong:

# How do I hash a string again?
echo -n "hello" | shasum -a 256 | cut -d' ' -f1

# Is this timestamp in seconds or milliseconds?
node -e "console.log(new Date(1735689600 * 1000).toISOString())"

devkit makes them memorable and consistent: one tool, one flag style, sensible defaults. Every command works with an argument, a file, or stdin.

Requirements

Node.js 18 or newer. That's it — there are no runtime dependencies.

Install

Clone and link it globally:

git clone https://github.com/DorianChn/devkit-cli.git
cd devkit-cli
npm link

npm link puts devkit on your PATH. To uninstall later, run npm unlink -g devkit.

Prefer not to install anything? Run it directly:

node bin/devkit.js hash "hello"

Commands

Command	Description
hash	Checksum text, a file, or stdin (sha256, sha1, sha512, md5)
uuid	Generate one or many UUID v4 values
json	Validate, pretty-print, or minify JSON
b64	Base64 encode or decode, including URL-safe variants
pass	Generate strong random passwords or numeric PINs
ts	Convert between Unix timestamps and ISO dates

Run devkit help <command> for per-command options and examples.

Usage

hash

Compute a checksum. Defaults to sha256; --quiet prints only the digest so it can be piped into other tools. File hashing is streamed, so large files don't blow up memory.

devkit hash "hello world"
devkit hash --file ./dist/bundle.js --algo sha512
echo -n "abc" | devkit hash --quiet

uuid

devkit uuid                  # one id
devkit uuid -n 5             # five ids
devkit uuid -n 3 --upper --no-dashes

json

Validates as it formats. On invalid input it reports the position of the problem and exits with code 1.

devkit json ./package.json
cat data.json | devkit json --minify
devkit json config.json --sort-keys --indent 4

b64

devkit b64 "hello"
devkit b64 "aGVsbG8=" --decode
cat image.png | devkit b64 --url-safe

pass

Passwords use an unambiguous alphabet — l, I, O, 0, and 1 are excluded so they survive being read aloud or retyped. --symbols widens the alphabet, and the entropy estimate is printed to stderr.

devkit pass
devkit pass --length 32 --symbols
devkit pass -n 5
devkit pass --pin --length 6

ts

With no argument, prints the current time. With an argument, interprets it as a Unix timestamp (seconds by default, milliseconds for 12+ digit values or when --ms is passed) or as any date string Date can parse.

devkit ts
devkit ts 1735689600
devkit ts 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z
devkit ts 1735689600000 --ms

Design notes

• Zero dependencies. Everything is built on Node's node:crypto, node:fs, and node:stream. No supply chain, no install step, no version conflicts.
• Composable output. Data goes to stdout, human-readable decoration goes to stderr. --quiet drops the decoration entirely.
• Colour is opt-in. ANSI colour is only emitted when stdout is a TTY, and it respects the NO_COLOR convention.
• Thin entry point. bin/devkit.js only maps argv to exit codes; all logic lives in testable modules under src/.

Project layout

devkit-cli/
├── bin/
│   └── devkit.js          # entry point: argv -> exit code
├── src/
│   ├── index.js           # command registry
│   ├── args.js            # argument parsing + UsageError
│   ├── colors.js          # ANSI helpers, NO_COLOR aware
│   ├── version.js
│   └── commands/
│       ├── hash.js
│       ├── uuid.js
│       ├── json.js
│       ├── b64.js
│       ├── pass.js
│       ├── ts.js
│       └── help.js
└── test/
    └── devkit.test.js

Testing

Uses the built-in node:test runner — no test framework to install.

npm test

Adding a command

1. Create src/commands/yourcommand.js exporting meta and an async run(argv).
2. Register it in the commands map in src/index.js.

bin/devkit.js and help pick it up automatically — the help output re-derives its column widths from the registry.

export const meta = {
  name: 'yourcommand',
  summary: 'One line describing what it does',
  usage: 'devkit yourcommand [--flag]',
  examples: ['devkit yourcommand --flag'],
};

export async function run(argv) {
  // parse args, do work, print to stdout
  return 0;
}

License

MIT — see LICENSE.