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Branchline CLI

Run Branchline programs on JVM or Node.

JVM

Download branchline-cli-<tag>-all.jar from GitHub Releases and run: 

java -jar branchline-cli-<tag>-all.jar path/to/program.bl --input sample.json

Node

Download branchline-cli-js-<tag>.tgz from GitHub Releases, extract, and run: 

tar -xzf branchline-cli-js-<tag>.tgz
./bin/bl.cjs path/to/program.bl --input sample.json

Common flags

  • --input path to input data
  • --input-format json | xml
  • --json-numbers strict | safe | extended
  • --json-key-mode string | numeric
  • --output-format json | json-compact | json-canonical
  • --trace enable tracing output

Inspect-first workflow

For generated programs, examples, and repair loops, inspect before execution:

bl inspect program.bl --contracts --contracts-json --normalized

--contracts-json emits the stable inspect envelope with success, diagnostics, warnings, feature usage, subset compatibility, normalized source, and transform contract data. --normalized fills normalizedSource when the program is compatible with the AI canonical subset. Treat normalizedSource: null as a signal to inspect diagnostics or warnings before running the transform.

Note: The Node CLI uses JavaScript Number formatting. For very large or very small floating-point values, the rendered JSON text (including json-canonical) can differ slightly from the JVM output due to IEEE-754 rounding and JS stringification. Use --json-numbers safe when you need to preserve exact decimal text as strings. Note: --json-key-mode numeric converts object keys that are non-negative integers without leading zeros (except 0). Top-level input keys remain strings; nested object keys are converted.