explaingit

bitfield/script

6,969GoAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

TLDR

script is a Go library that lets you write file-reading, text-filtering, and shell-scripting-style pipelines directly in Go code, chain sources, transformations, and outputs the same way you would in Bash, but in type-safe Go.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Shell pipelines in Go
      File and text processing
      HTTP requests
    Core concepts
      Source of data
      Transformation steps
      Output destination
    Sources
      Files
      Stdin
      HTTP responses
      CLI arguments
    Transformations
      Filter lines
      Count matches
      JQ queries
    Audience
      Go developers
      Automation authors
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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Count lines matching a pattern across multiple log files in a Go program without dropping into a shell script.

USE CASE 2

Make HTTP GET requests and filter the JSON response with a JQ query inside a Go CLI tool.

USE CASE 3

Build a file-processing tool that reads from files or stdin interchangeably with minimal code changes.

USE CASE 4

Chain text transformations like filtering, slicing, and converting output in a single readable expression.

Tech stack

Go

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Pure Go library, add it with go get and import it, no external binaries or system dependencies required.

In plain English

This is a Go library called script that lets developers write programs in the Go programming language that work like shell scripts. Shell scripts are small programs people write for the command line, usually to read files, search text, run other programs, and chain those operations together. Normally you would do that in a language like Bash. This library brings that same style of working into Go. The core idea is a pipeline: you start with a source of data, pass it through a series of transformations, and send the result somewhere. A source might be a file, the text you type into a terminal, command-line arguments, or an HTTP request. Transformations include things like filtering lines that match a word, converting text to uppercase, grabbing only the first N results, or running each line through an external program. The result can go to the terminal, to a file, or be returned as a string in your program. For example, to count how many lines in a log file contain the word "Error", you would write three chained calls: open the file, filter to matching lines, then count. To make the same program work on input piped from the terminal instead of a file, you swap one word. To grab matching lines from multiple files passed as command-line arguments, you swap another word. The library tries to make those kinds of changes feel natural. It also handles HTTP: you can make GET or POST requests and pipe the response through the same transformations. There is support for running JQ queries against JSON responses, which is a way to extract specific fields from structured data. Error handling follows the pipeline: if any step fails, subsequent steps quietly produce no output, and you can check the error at the end. This avoids writing nested error checks for every step. The library is aimed at Go developers who want to write system administration tools or automation scripts without switching to a shell language. It is not a tool for end users, you need to write Go code to use it.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Show me Go code using the bitfield/script library to open a log file, filter lines containing the word Error, and print the count.
Prompt 2
I want to write a Go CLI tool using bitfield/script that accepts filenames as arguments or reads from stdin. Show me how to make the input source interchangeable with one word swap.
Prompt 3
How do I use bitfield/script to make an HTTP GET request, run a JQ query on the JSON response, and print a specific field to stdout?
Prompt 4
Show me how error handling works in a bitfield/script pipeline, what happens when a step in the middle fails, and how do I check the final error at the end?
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