ripsed

A fast, modern stream editor built in Rust. Like ripgrep is to grep, ripsed is to sed.

Designed for humans and machines — with first-class JSON support for AI coding agents.

Features

• Sensible defaults. Recursive, .gitignore-aware, UTF-8. No flags needed for the common case.
• No escape hell. Standard Rust regex syntax. No sed-style delimiters.
• Agent-native. Structured JSON I/O as a first-class interface, not an afterthought.
• Safe by default. Dry-run previews, atomic writes, undo log, backup files.
• Fast. Parallel file discovery, memory-mapped I/O, same philosophy as ripgrep.
• Scriptable. Chain operations in .rip script files for multi-step refactors.

Installation

From source

cargo install --path crates/ripsed-cli

Requires Rust 1.85+.

Quick Start

# Find-and-replace across all files (recursive, respects .gitignore)
ripsed 'old_function' 'new_function'

# Regex with capture groups
ripsed -e 'fn\s+old_(\w+)' 'fn new_$1'

# Scope to specific files
ripsed 'TODO' 'DONE' --glob '*.rs'

# Delete lines matching a pattern
ripsed -d 'console\.log'

# Insert text after matching lines
ripsed 'use serde;' --after 'use serde_json;'

# Transform matched text (upper, lower, title, snake_case, camel_case)
ripsed --transform upper 'select|from|where' -e

# Surround matching lines with prefix/suffix
ripsed --surround '/* ' ' */' 'HACK'

# Indent/dedent matching lines
ripsed --indent 4 'nested_block'
ripsed --dedent 2 'over_indented'

# Run a multi-step refactor from a .rip script
ripsed --script refactor.rip

# Preview changes without applying
ripsed 'foo' 'bar' --dry-run

# Pipe mode (stdin/stdout, like traditional sed)
echo 'hello world' | ripsed 'hello' 'goodbye'

CLI Reference

USAGE:
    ripsed [OPTIONS] <FIND> [REPLACE]

ARGS:
    <FIND>       Pattern to search for (literal by default, regex with -e)
    [REPLACE]    Replacement string

OPTIONS:
    -e, --regex              Treat FIND as a regex
    -d, --delete             Delete matching lines
        --dry-run            Preview changes without writing
        --backup             Create .ripsed.bak files before modifying
        --glob <PATTERN>     Only process files matching glob
        --ignore <PATTERN>   Skip files matching glob
        --hidden             Include hidden files
        --no-gitignore       Don't respect .gitignore
        --case-insensitive   Case-insensitive matching
        --after <TEXT>       Insert text after matching lines
        --before <TEXT>      Insert text before matching lines
        --replace-line <TEXT> Replace entire matching line
    -n, --line-range <N:M>   Only operate on lines N through M
        --max-depth <N>      Maximum directory recursion depth
    -c, --count              Print count of matches only
    -q, --quiet              Suppress all non-error output
        --confirm            Interactive confirmation before each file
        --undo [N]           Undo the last N operations (default: 1)
        --undo-list          Show recent undo log entries
        --follow             Follow symbolic links during discovery
        --config <PATH>      Path to .ripsed.toml config file
        --transform <MODE>   Transform matched text (upper, lower, title, snake_case, camel_case)
        --surround <P> <S>   Surround matching lines with prefix and suffix
        --indent <N>         Indent matching lines by N spaces
        --dedent <N>         Remove up to N leading whitespace chars from matching lines
        --script <PATH>      Run operations from a .rip script file
    -j, --json               Enable agent/JSON mode
        --jsonl              Stream results as JSON Lines
        --no-json            Force human mode even if stdin looks like JSON

Agent / JSON Mode

ripsed has a structured JSON interface designed for AI coding agents, editor plugins, and automation pipelines. In agent mode, dry_run defaults to true for safety.

Request

ripsed --json << 'EOF'
{
  "version": "1",
  "operations": [
    {
      "op": "replace",
      "find": "old_function",
      "replace": "new_function",
      "glob": "src/**/*.rs"
    },
    {
      "op": "delete",
      "find": "^\\s*//\\s*TODO:.*$",
      "regex": true
    }
  ],
  "options": {
    "dry_run": true,
    "root": "./my-project"
  }
}
EOF

Response

{
  "version": "1",
  "success": true,
  "dry_run": true,
  "summary": {
    "files_matched": 12,
    "files_modified": 0,
    "total_replacements": 34
  },
  "results": [
    {
      "operation_index": 0,
      "files": [
        {
          "path": "src/lib.rs",
          "changes": [
            {
              "line": 42,
              "before": "    let result = old_function(x);",
              "after": "    let result = new_function(x);",
              "context": {
                "before": ["fn main() {", "    let x = 5;"],
                "after": ["    println!(\"{}\", result);", "}"]
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "errors": []
}

Operations

Operation	JSON op	Human flag	Description
Replace	replace	ripsed 'find' 'replace'	Find and replace text
Delete	delete	-d	Remove lines matching pattern
Insert after	insert_after	--after	Insert text after matching lines
Insert before	insert_before	--before	Insert text before matching lines
Replace line	replace_line	--replace-line	Replace entire matching line
Transform	transform	--transform MODE	Change case of matched text
Surround	surround	--surround P S	Wrap matching lines with prefix/suffix
Indent	indent	--indent N	Add N spaces before matching lines
Dedent	dedent	--dedent N	Remove up to N leading whitespace chars from matching lines

Error Handling

Every error includes a machine-readable code, human-readable message, and actionable hint:

Code	Description
no_matches	Pattern matched nothing
invalid_regex	Regex failed to compile
invalid_request	Malformed JSON or missing fields
file_not_found	Target path doesn't exist
permission_denied	Can't read/write target files
binary_file_skipped	Binary file was skipped
write_failed	Could not write output file

Script Files

Chain multiple operations in a .rip file:

# refactor.rip — rename and clean up
replace "oldApi" "newApi" --glob "*.ts"
replace "OldApi" "NewApi" --glob "*.ts"
delete "// DEPRECATED" -e
transform "select|from|where|join" --mode upper -e --glob "*.sql"

ripsed --script refactor.rip --dry-run   # preview
ripsed --script refactor.rip             # apply

Each line is an operation with the same flags as the CLI. Comments start with #. Strings with spaces use quotes (single or double, with escape support).

Configuration

Create a .ripsed.toml in your project root:

[defaults]
backup = true
max_depth = 10

[undo]
max_entries = 100

ripsed discovers this file by walking up from the current directory, similar to .gitignore.

Architecture

ripsed is organized as a Rust workspace with four crates:

Crate	Description
ripsed-core	Pure logic: edit engine, matcher, operation IR, error taxonomy
ripsed-fs	File I/O: discovery, reading (with mmap), atomic writes, locking
ripsed-json	Agent interface: request/response schemas, auto-detection
ripsed-cli	Binary: CLI args, human output formatting, interactive confirm

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or submit a pull request.

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in this project by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.