The developers of the Bun JavaScript runtime have released Bun Shell, a new experimental embedded language and interpreter in Bun that lets you run cross-platform shell scripts in JavaScript and TypeScript.

Bun is a modern JavaScript runtime aiming at similar uses to Node or Deno. The developers describe it as a fast, all-in-one toolkit for running, building, testing, and debugging JavaScript and TypeScript, from a single file to a full-stack application.

Bun was designed to be a drop-in replacement for your current JavaScript and TypeScript apps or scripts, and the new tool is designed to make it simpler to execute shell scripts. The developers point out that while shells such as bash and sh have been around for decades, they don't work well in JavaScript because each operating system has a slightly different shell with its own syntax and commands, and the fact that even the same command can have different flags and behaviors.

Currently, this is overcome by polyfilling missing commands with JavaScript implementations. The new Bun shell aims to overcome all these problems by providing a new experimental embedded language and interpreter that can be used to run cross-platform shell scripts in JavaScript and TypeScript.

The shell scripts can include JavaScript variables, and all template variables are escaped for security. Stdout can be redirected to buffers or to a file, or pipes to another command. You can use Response as stdin, and built in commands like cd, echo and rm are available:

The team says the tool works on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and many common commands and features such as globbing, environment variables, redirection and piping have been implemented.

The alpha version of the Bun Shell is available now.

More Information

Bun Website

Bun On GitHub

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