Show HN: Slupe lets web LLMs safely edit local files

3 months ago 2

Sandboxed LLM oUtput processing engine

LLM coder 'tools' for any model

Slupe is a file system orchestration tool that enables LLMs to execute file operations through a custom syntax language called NESL (No Escape Syntax Language). It provides a secure, configurable bridge between AI assistants and your local development environment.

Universal LLM Compatibility: Works with any LLM that can generate text
File System Operations: Read, write, move, delete files with configurable access controls
Security Guards: Configurable path-based access control with glob pattern support
Git Integration: Optional hooks for automated commits and version control
Real-time Monitoring: Watch input files for action changes and execute NESL blocks automatically
Clipboard Integration: Optionally copies outputs directly to clipboard and monitor clipboard for input NESL blocks

or just

Requirements:

Node.js >= 20.0.0
Git (optional, for version control hooks)

Initialize Slupe in your project:

cd your-project npx slupe

This creates:

slupe.yml - Configuration file
slupe_input.md - Input file for NESL commands
NESL_INSTRUCTIONS.md - Instructions for LLMs

Share NESL_INSTRUCTIONS.md with an LLM along with any other relevant info from your file system, and ask it to make changes for you as nesl syntax.
Paste the whole output including NESL blocks into slupe_input.md and watch the execution results get prepended to the input file.

NESL was designed to provide LLMs with a robust and conflict-free way to communicate payloads with minimal errors. Tests have generally shown LLM-generated nesl to be more reliable that other compared formats including json (obviously), yaml, ruby heredocs, perl heredocs, and aider's git-conflict search/replace format.

#!nesl [@three-char-SHA-256: x5t] action = "file_write" path = "/path/to/file.txt" content = <<'EOT_x5t' Hello, World! This is multi-line content. EOT_x5t #!end_x5t

file_read - Read file contents
file_write - Create or overwrite files
file_delete - Delete files
file_move - Move or rename files
file_replace_text - Replace text in files (single occurrence)
file_replace_all_text - Replace all occurrences of text
files_replace_all_text - Replace text across multiple files
files_read - Read multiple files at once

# Slupe configuration version: 1 # Allowed tools (required for security) allowed-actions: - file_write - file_read - file_delete - file_move - file_replace_text - file_replace_all_text - files_read # File system guard configuration fs-guard: # Allowed paths (supports glob patterns) # Relative paths are resolved from this config file's location allowed: - "./**" # All files in project - "/tmp/**" # Temporary files # Denied paths (more specific rules override less specific) denied: - "**/.git/**" # Git internals - "**/.ssh/**" # SSH keys - "**/node_modules/**" # Dependencies # Whether to follow symlinks (default: false) followSymlinks: false # Git hooks configuration hooks: # before: [] # after: [] # Example hooks # before: # - run: git add -A # - run: git commit -m "before ${COMMIT_MSG}" # - run: git push # timeout: 10000 # 10s for slow networks ## this creates a pushes a git commit with a helpful message # after: # - run: | # git add -A && # git commit -m "$(echo "auto-slupe:: $(git diff --cached --name-only | wc -l | tr -d ' ') files:\n$(git diff --cached --name-only | head -10)")" && # git push # Variables available in commands vars: COMMIT_MSG: "auto-slupe::" # Add more variables as needed # Listener configuration clipboard: false # Enable clipboard copy on execution input_file: slupe_input.md output_file: .slupe_output.md

1. Interactive Mode (Default)

Start the listener and edit slupe_input.md:

Enable clipboard integration:

With clipboard mode enabled:

Execution results are automatically copied to clipboard
Slupe monitors your clipboard for NESL blocks
When you copy two clipboard entries containing matching NESL delimiters (e.g., both containing #!end_abc), Slupe automatically executes the shorter entry

This enables a workflow where:

Copy the entire LLM response that includes NESL blocks.
Quickly (within 2 seconds) ctrl-a, ctrl-c the entire webpage to copy the whole thing including the recent response you just copied
Slupe detects and executes them automatically
Results are copied back to your clipboard

note: for reliable results, wait about half a second before doing the second copy. Especially for large content that take the OS a bit to register

slupe [options] Options: --clipboard Enable clipboard copy on execution --input_file <path> Input file path (default: slupe_input.md) --output_file <path> Output file path (default: .slupe_output.md) --help Show help message

Slupe includes a git squashing utility for cleaning up commit history:

slupe-squash [options] Options: --containing <string> Match commits containing string (multiple=OR, ""=all) Default: "auto-slupe::" if none specified --limit <number> Max commits to squash from HEAD --after <date> Only consider commits after ISO date --message <string> Custom message (auto-generated if omitted) --push Push to remote using --force-with-lease --force With --push, use --force instead --dry-run Preview without executing --help Show help

Examples:

# Squash all commits containing "WIP" slupe-squash --containing "WIP" # Squash last 5 commits with any message slupe-squash --containing "" --limit 5 # Squash and push with custom message slupe-squash --message "Feature: Add authentication" --push

The squash tool:

Finds commits matching your criteria
Combines them into a single commit
Preserves the complete file change history
Can automatically push changes with lease protection

Slupe implements multiple security layers:

Action Allowlist: Only explicitly allowed actions can be executed
Path Guards: Fine-grained control over file system access
No Shell Expansion: Commands are executed safely without shell interpretation

To use Slupe with your LLM:

Include the generated NESL_INSTRUCTIONS.md in your LLM prompt
Ask the LLM to generate NESL blocks for file operations
Copy the LLM's response to slupe_input.md or use clipboard mode

Example prompt:

Read the NESL_INSTRUCTIONS.md file and help me create a Python script that calculates fibonacci numbers. Use NESL blocks to write the file. My cwd is /Users/path/to/dir

# Clone the repository git clone https://github.com/stuartcrobinson/slupe.git cd slupe # Install dependencies npm install # Run tests npm test # Run in development mode npm run dev

Slupe is built with a modular component architecture:

Parser (nesl-action-parser): Parses NESL blocks into structured actions
Orchestrator (orch): Coordinates execution and manages workflow
Executors: Specialized handlers for different action types
- fs-ops: File system operations
Guards (fs-guard): Security and access control
Listener: File watching and real-time execution
Squash: Git history management utility