Tokenize shell commands (POSIX split) and shell-quote arguments via @mukundakatta/shlex-mcp (npx) — 2 tools

@mukundakatta/shlex-mcp v0.1.0 — POSIX shell command tokenizer & quoter

Install: npm install @mukundakatta/shlex-mcp Entry: dist/server.js (stdio) Tools: 2 — split ({input}) and quote ({arg})

split — tokenize shell commands into argv arrays

Splits a shell-style command string into tokens following POSIX rules:

• Double-quoted strings preserved as single tokens: echo "hello world" → ["echo", "hello world"]
• Single-quoted strings preserved: echo 'hello world' → ["echo", "hello world"]
• Backslash escapes work: cat file\ with\ spaces.txt → ["cat", "file with spaces.txt"]
• Escaped quotes: echo "hello\"world" → ["echo", "hello\"world"]
• Nested quotes: echo "hello 'nested' world" → ["echo", "hello 'nested' world"]
• Shell operators treated as plain tokens: ls -la && echo done → ["ls", "-la", "&&", "echo", "done"]
• Multiple spaces collapsed, leading/trailing trimmed
• Empty/whitespace-only → [] (no error)
• Unicode-safe (Turkish ü, accented chars)
• Unterminated quotes → graceful error message: "shlex failed: unbalanced single quote"
• $HOME NOT expanded (literal token)
• Backslash-n: \n → strips backslash, keeps n (POSIX behavior)

quote — safely single-quote an argument

Wraps argument so shell passes it through unmodified:

• Spaces: hello world → 'hello world'
• Apostrophes use break-and-escape idiom: it's → 'it'\''s'
• Double quotes preserved inside singles: say "hi" → 'say "hi"'
• Shell metacharacters neutralized: $HOME → '$HOME', $(id) → '$(id)', ` whoami → '\whoami\'`
• Injection safe: hello;rm -rf / → 'hello;rm -rf /'
• Tabs/newlines preserved: a b\tc\nd → 'a b\tc\nd'
• Empty string → ''
• Safe barewords returned unquoted: hello → hello
• Unicode+emoji safe: Merhaba Dünya 🌍 → 'Merhaba Dünya 🌍'

Round-trip verified

quote("file with spaces.txt") → 'file with spaces.txt' → split("echo 'file with spaces.txt'") → ["echo", "file with spaces.txt"] ✅

Performance

First call ~102ms (JIT), subsequent 1-14ms. p50=3ms across 32 calls.