paredit-cli

paredit-cli is a command-line tool for inspecting, editing, and safely refactoring Lisp source. It parses first, edits only balanced S-expression structure or exact atom tokens, and validates the result — so symbol-oriented rewrites never touch strings or comments.

It supports Common Lisp, Emacs Lisp, Scheme, Clojure, Janet, and Fennel sources, and is designed for both people and AI coding agents.

Quick start

paredit inspect check --file source.lisp
paredit edit format --file source.lisp
paredit refactor rename-symbol --file source.lisp --from old-name --to new-name

The CLI has exactly three source-facing namespaces:

• paredit inspect: read-only reports and analysis.
• paredit edit: structural edits of a selected form — stdout by default, --diff for a unified diff, --write to update the file in place.
• paredit refactor: planned semantic changes with preview and verification workflows — see the refactor workflow.

There are no legacy top-level command aliases; the only meta command is paredit completions <shell>. Forms are addressed with tree paths or byte offsets — see Selecting forms. Automation and AI coding agents should start with the agent interface, including paredit inspect capabilities for one-call discovery of the whole command surface.

Install

nix run github:takeokunn/paredit-cli -- inspect check --file source.lisp

See Installation for Nix profiles, the flake overlay, Cachix binary caches, and cargo install. Contributors should start with Development.