TOtosh·Nov 28, 2023Submission
Closh: Bash-like shell based on Clojure
2 points · Open discussiondundalek
closh
Clojure2017–2023
dundalek / closh
closh
Bash-like shell based on Clojure
12Distinct people
14Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
1.6KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Bash-like shell based on Clojure
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
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Also in these discussions
- babashka/babashka · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year14 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2017-11-01 13:29:56 UTC to 2023-11-28 11:22:48 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
What Hacker News says
14 sourcesReminds me a bit of Closh: https://github.com/dundalek/closh
which is now on hiatus. babashka: https://babashka.org
however, is in full bloom for scripting thanks to a relentless Borkdude and the GraalVM project.
In Rash – The Reckless Racket ShellClosh is an interesting functional shell as well - https://github.com/dundalek/closh
While not an interactive shell, I find find babashka - https://babashka.org to be elegant for scripting.
In Show HN: Cosh – concatenative command-line shellMaybe have a look at Closh [1], a clojure based shell
[1] https://github.com/dundalek/closh
In Why I still LispThere's also closh (https://github.com/dundalek/closh) which also provides scripting capabilities appart from the pure interactive shell.
As a newcomer to clojure my question is: what would be the practical differences and deciding factors for doing what would be a ".sh" in babashka vs closh?
In A Shell Language in LispFor Clojure aficionados, there's a flavour of Clojure made for scripting and the command line: Babashka https://github.com/borkdude/babashka
And a proper shell, Closh: https://github.com/dundalek/closh
In Crush: A command line shell that is also a powerful modern programming languageClosh – Bash-like shell based on Clojure
3 points · Open discussionReminded me of Closh (https://github.com/dundalek/closh), which is a Bash-like shell based on Clojure. Both Babashka and Closh runs Clojure code directly from shell.
In Babashka – A Clojure for the grey areas of BashThis "small" Clojure interpreter can be used from Clojure on the JVM and GraalVM and JavaScript/ClojureScript. It implements a subset of Clojure. The main goal is be able to execute snippets of Clojure in environments where you normally don't get to use Clojure's "eval" or where it isn't safe to do so.
Its main use is being the interpreter for https://github.com/borkdude/babashka, a native Clojure scripting tool which can be used to alleviate your bash pains, but it could potentially be interesting for other use cases too.
Malli (https://github.com/metosin/malli), a Clojure schema library, is using it for letting users express in code what they cannot do using the normal configuration language.
Closh is investigating if sci can be used to compile closh to native code using GraalVM: https://github.com/dundalek/closh/tree/feature/sci.
Undoc
Read the rest
umented features (still figuring out the best API):
- Explicit allowing and denying of certain symbols.
- Limit evaluation of infinite sequences.
A pure Java API is certainly possible if this is useful to anyone.
You may find closh interesting then
https://github.com/dundalek/closh
Previous HN entry about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15600928
In Introducing nushellSure, I agree, for specific tasks. Just like a hammer is a better tool than a screw driver for putting nails in a block of wood.
Thats my point. They're tools not lifestyle choices. Learn your tools, know your tools, don't be afraid of other people's tools.
They all, usually, have some sort of value.
I might as well note this too:
I am speaking in broad strokes, you're going to be able to pinhole this as much as you want because of that. I'm simply suggesting that if your immediate reaction to how another organization uses these tools to replace A with B at a certain level is "this is clearly inferior" instead of "well, what can I learn from this" well, there's the problem.
I used to think programmers/computer scientists where open minded people. Then I realized as a whole it tends to be we're only open minded if its within the domain we
Read the rest
chose to be most active in
Still far and away better than any other folks I've met, of course, but this is really a community culture problem, which is why I find it so counter productive.
Alternatives to bash? Many do exist. zsh is bash compatible but does implement its own tools and subsets.
If you're looking for something that removes the bash syntax there is powershell, which does run on Linux/macOS now as well:
https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell
Then of course, there is oil shell:
https://github.com/oilshell/oil
which is more like a subset of bash (and somewhat close to the idea of stripping away all the legacy stuff)
Then there is xonsh: lets you use python as a basis for most everything
http://xon.sh/
The stalwart fish:
https://fishshell.com/
fish shell has alot of niceties and a more object oriented syntax (kind of)
and for the daring there is ergonomica:
https://ergonomica.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
which has a lisp like syntax
as does https://github.com/dundalek/closh which uses clojure and its syntax
and i'm sure there are more.
See also clojure shell
https://github.com/dundalek/closh
In Show HN: Lisp ShellYou can use node libraries by requiring them with (js/require). ClojureScript libraries are in theory possible too, but I need to figure out how to specify classpath options for them.
Check out the example: https://github.com/dundalek/closh/blob/master/doc/guide.md#c...
In Closh – Bash-like shell based on ClojureClosh – Bash-like shell based on Clojure
259 points · Open discussion