Skip to content
/ bashrs Public

Bashrs: Rust-to-Shell Transpiler for Deterministic Bootstrap Scripts

License

Notifications You must be signed in to change notification settings

paiml/bashrs

Folders and files

NameName
Last commit message
Last commit date

Latest commit

Β 

History

1,413 Commits
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 
Β 

Repository files navigation

bashrs

Rash - Bidirectional Shell Safety Tool

Crates.io Documentation Book License CI

Bidirectional shell safety tool that purifies legacy bash scripts and lets you write shell scripts in REAL Rust with automatic safety guarantees.

Table of Contents

πŸš€ What's New in v6.61.0

Latest Release - 2026-02-10

  • Transpiler Bug Fixes: 2 critical correctness fixes
    • return inside while/for/match in functions now correctly emits shell arithmetic
    • let x = match y { ... } now generates proper case statements instead of x='unknown'
  • Corpus Expansion: 14,712 transpilation entries (13,397 Bash + 695 Makefile + 620 Dockerfile)
    • V2 Score: 97.5/100 (A+), 0 failures across all entries
    • 107+ CLI subcommands for corpus analysis, quality gates, and convergence tracking
  • New Example: transpiler_demo showcasing nested calls, match-in-let, recursion, and multi-function programs
  • Quality Metrics: 10,888 tests, 97.5/100 corpus score (A+)

See CHANGELOG.md for complete release notes.

Why Rash?

Shell scripts are everywhereβ€”CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation, system configurationβ€”but they're notoriously difficult to write safely. Rash solves this by providing:

  1. Bidirectional Safety: Write in Rust and transpile to shell, or purify existing bash scripts
  2. Automatic Transformation: Don't just detect problemsβ€”fix them automatically
  3. Deterministic Guarantees: Same input always produces identical, reproducible output
  4. Zero Runtime Dependencies: Generated scripts run on any POSIX-compliant system

Features

  • πŸ›‘οΈ Automatic Safety: Protection against shell injection, word splitting, glob expansion
  • πŸ” Beyond Linting: Full AST semantic understanding - transforms code, doesn't just warn
  • πŸ“¦ Zero Runtime Dependencies: Generated scripts work on any POSIX shell
  • 🎯 Deterministic Output: Same input always produces identical scripts
  • βœ… ShellCheck Compliant: All output passes strict linting

How Rash Exceeds ShellCheck

What ShellCheck Does What Rash Does
⚠️ Warns: "$RANDOM is non-deterministic" βœ… Rewrites to version-based deterministic IDs
⚠️ Warns: "mkdir may fail if exists" βœ… Transforms to mkdir -p (idempotent)
⚠️ Warns: "Unquoted variable expansion" βœ… Quotes all variables automatically
Static pattern matching Full AST semantic understanding
Detects issues (read-only) Fixes issues (read-write transformation)

Key Difference: ShellCheck tells you what's wrong. Rash understands your code's intent and rewrites it to be safe, deterministic, and idempotent β€” automatically.

Quick Start

Installation

# From crates.io (recommended)
cargo install bashrs

# Or from source
git clone https://github.com/paiml/bashrs
cd bashrs
cargo install --path rash

Write Rust, Get Safe Shell

// install.rs
#[rash::main]
fn main() {
    let version = env_var_or("VERSION", "1.0.0");
    let prefix = env_var_or("PREFIX", "/usr/local");

    echo("Installing MyApp {version} to {prefix}");

    mkdir_p("{prefix}/bin");
    mkdir_p("{prefix}/share/myapp");

    if exec("cp myapp {prefix}/bin/") {
        echo("βœ“ Binary installed");
    } else {
        eprint("βœ— Failed to install binary");
        exit(1);
    }
}

Transpile to safe POSIX shell:

$ bashrs build install.rs -o install.sh

Or Purify Existing Bash

Before (messy bash):

#!/bin/bash
SESSION_ID=$RANDOM                      # Non-deterministic
mkdir /app/releases/$RELEASE            # Non-idempotent
rm /app/current                         # Fails if doesn't exist

After (purified by Rash):

#!/bin/sh
session_id="session-${version}"         # βœ… Deterministic
mkdir -p "/app/releases/${release}"     # βœ… Idempotent
rm -f "/app/current"                    # βœ… Safe removal

Core Commands

# Transpile Rust to shell
bashrs build input.rs -o output.sh

# Purify legacy bash scripts
bashrs purify messy.sh -o clean.sh

# Interactive REPL with debugging
bashrs repl

# Lint shell scripts (including Dockerfiles)
bashrs lint script.sh

# Test bash scripts
bashrs test script.sh

# Quality scoring
bashrs score script.sh

# Comprehensive audit
bashrs audit script.sh

Advanced Testing

Rash includes Probar integration for comprehensive quality assurance:

# State machine testing with playbooks
bashrs playbook install.playbook.yaml --run

# Mutation testing (goal: >90% kill rate)
bashrs mutate script.sh --count 10

# Deterministic simulation replay
bashrs simulate script.sh --seed 42 --verify

Mutation Operators: Rash applies 10 mutation operators including string mutations, command substitutions, conditional inversions, and redirect modifications to verify test quality.

πŸ“š Documentation

The Rash Book is the canonical source for all documentation:

Quick links:

Why the book?

  • βœ… All examples automatically tested
  • βœ… Always up-to-date with latest release
  • βœ… Comprehensive coverage of all features
  • βœ… Real-world examples and tutorials

Quality Metrics

Metric Value Status
V2 Corpus Score 97.5/100 βœ… Grade A+
Corpus Entries 14,712 βœ… 100% pass rate
Tests 10,888 passing βœ… 100% pass rate
Transpilation 100% (14,712/14,712) βœ… All entries compile
Behavioral 100% (14,707/14,712) βœ… Output matches spec
Deterministic 100% (14,712/14,712) βœ… Same input = same output
ShellCheck 99.9% compliant βœ… All output passes
Cross-Shell 98.8% (sh + dash) βœ… POSIX portable
Shell Compatibility 6 shells βœ… sh, dash, bash, ash, zsh, mksh

Falsification Testing (Popper Methodology)

Rash uses Popperian falsificationβ€”tests attempt to disprove functionality rather than prove it works:

# Run 130-point transpiler falsification checklist
cargo test -p bashrs --test transpiler_tcode_tests

# Run 30-point Dockerfile falsification checklist
cargo test -p bashrs --test dockerfile_dcode_tests

A passing test means the falsification attempt failedβ€”the feature works correctly.

Shell Compatibility

Generated scripts are tested on:

Shell Version Status
POSIX sh - βœ… Full support
dash 0.5.11+ βœ… Full support
bash 3.2+ βœ… Full support
ash (BusyBox) 1.30+ βœ… Full support
zsh 5.0+ βœ… Full support
mksh R59+ βœ… Full support

Performance

Rash is designed for fast transpilation:

  • Rust-to-Shell: 21.1Β΅s transpile time
  • Makefile Parsing: 0.034-1.43ms (70-320x faster than targets)
  • Memory Usage: <10MB for most scripts

MCP Server

Rash provides a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for AI-assisted shell script generation:

# Install MCP server
cargo install rash-mcp

# Run server
rash-mcp

Available in the official MCP registry as io.github.paiml/rash.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! See our Contributing Guide for details.

# Clone and test
git clone https://github.com/paiml/bashrs.git
cd bashrs
make test

# Run all quality checks
make validate

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.


For comprehensive documentation, visit The Rash Book

About

Bashrs: Rust-to-Shell Transpiler for Deterministic Bootstrap Scripts

Topics

Resources

License

Contributing

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Packages

No packages published

Contributors 3

  •  
  •  
  •