`silk-repl(1)` - Interactive Silk REPL

NOTE: This is the Markdown source for the eventual man 1 page for silk repl. The roff-formatted manpage should be generated from this content.

Name#

silk-repl - start an interactive compile-and-run Silk session.

Synopsis#

silk repl
silk repl --help

Description#

silk repl starts the interactive Silk read-eval-print loop. It is the same mode entered when silk is launched with no command and stdin is a TTY.

The REPL keeps session state by replaying committed state-building lines:

imports are persisted after syntax and import-target validation,
top-level declarations are persisted after compilation validation,
runtime bindings and assignments are replayed for later runtime lines,
simple committed value bindings may reuse cached rendered values until state changes,
failed parse, check, compile, or execution attempts are not committed,
one-off runtime calls such as println("..."); execute once and are not replayed.

Runtime snippets may use top-level await; the REPL emits an async synthetic entrypoint for snippets or replayed state lines that need one. Bare auto-printed async fn calls are awaited before their values are rendered.

Interactive TTY input supports Silk syntax highlighting, dim inline completion hints when colors are available, Tab completion, reverse incremental history search with Ctrl-R, multiline input with continuation indentation, and paste handling for chunks that contain multiple top-level entries.

Built-In Commands#

.help - show REPL help.
.man <query> - show inline docs for current-session symbols, imported symbols, and std::... modules or symbols.
.clear - reset session state.
.cls - clear the screen.
.undo - undo the last committed line.
.exit - exit the REPL.

The .man command is intentionally narrower than silk man: it is for inline REPL browsing. Use silk man --list, silk man --search <pattern>, and sectioned queries such as silk man 7 silk outside the REPL.

Options#

--help, -h - show command help and exit.

Environment#

SILK_REPL_HISTORY - history file path. When unset, the REPL uses $SILK_WORK_DIR/repl_history.
SILK_WORK_DIR - work directory used for REPL history when SILK_REPL_HISTORY is unset. Default: .silk under the nearest package root or current directory.
NO_COLOR / TERM=dumb - disable ANSI-colored interactive surfaces.

Exit Status#

0 on normal exit.
non-zero on startup or command-line usage errors.

silk-repl(1) - Interactive Silk REPL