Elk Shell

Elk is an experimental shell language that aims to seamlessly combine the syntax of a shell language like bash with the syntax of a general-purpose language like Python. Bash is great for executing programs and handling files, but can be quite limiting and tedious to use when it comes to dealing with different data types and performing complex operations. Elk was built with both of these scenarios in mind.

Language features:

• Variables of different data types without a prefix (like $)
• User-defined functions
• Convenient syntax for program invocation
• Pipes for both program and function calls
• Module system that supports circular imports
• Standard library with operations that are common in general-purpose languages such as string operations or date/time handling
• Control flow (if, for, while, etc.) with a clean familiar syntax
• Common operations (like arithmetic operations) that can be done anywhere, unlike in bash

UX features:

• Commands preceded by $: are evaluated as bash, making it easy to paste bash commands into the shell when necessary
• Custom completions
• Semantic highlighting (in the command line shell, Neovim and Visual Studio Code)
• Hints (history, file names)