Overview

zen-sh allows you to open up a shell and execute commands asynchronously using tagged template strings.

Installing

zen-sh is an experimental ES6 module. First, install the latest version of es6now (a wrapper around Node which allows you to use ES6 features). Then install using NPM:

npm install zen-sh

API

openShell(options = {})

Opens a shell as a child process and returns a function suitable for tagging template strings.

The following options can be specified:

• env: An object containing shell environment variables. Defaults to process.env.
• shell: The shell program to use. Defaults to env.SHELL.
• cwd: The initial working directory.

When called, the returned function will execute the command string in the shell, and return a promise for the command's completion.

The returned promise has an attached pipe method, which can be used to pipe standard output or standard error to an arbitrary stream.

Examples

Automating GIT fetches from Javascript

import { openShell } from "package:zen-sh";
import { settings } from "settings.js";

export async function main() {

    let sh = openShell({ cwd: settings.src });

    for (let repo of settings.repos) {

        console.log(`Fetching latest commits to ${ repo }`);
    
        await sh`cd ${ repo }`;
        await sh`git fetch origin`.pipe(process.stdout, process.stderr);
        await sh`cd ../`;
    }
    
    await sh`exit`;
}