@marcbachmann/cel-js

A high-performance, zero-dependency implementation of the Common Expression Language (CEL) in JavaScript.

🚀 Use the CEL JS Playground to test expressions.

Overview

CEL (Common Expression Language) is a non-Turing complete language designed for simplicity, speed, safety, and portability. This JavaScript implementation provides a fast, lightweight CEL evaluator perfect for policy evaluation, configuration, and embedded expressions.

Features

• 🚀 Zero Dependencies - No external packages required
• ⚡ High Performance - About 10x faster than alternatives (compared to cel-js)
• 📦 ES Modules - Modern ESM with full tree-shaking support
• 🔒 Type Safe - Environment API with type checking for variables, custom types and functions
• 🎯 Most of the CEL Spec - Including macros, custom functions and types, optional chaining, input variables, and all operators
• 📘 TypeScript Support - Full type definitions included

Installation

npm install @marcbachmann/cel-js

Quick Start

import {evaluate} from '@marcbachmann/cel-js'

// Simple evaluation
evaluate('1 + 2 * 3') // 7n

// With context
const allowed = evaluate(
  'user.age >= 18 && "admin" in user.roles',
  {user: {age: 30, roles: ['admin', 'user']}}
)
// true

API

Simple Evaluation

import {evaluate, parse} from '@marcbachmann/cel-js'

// Direct evaluation
evaluate('1 + 2') // 3n

// With variables
evaluate('name + "!"', {name: 'Alice'}) // "Alice!"

// Parse once, evaluate multiple times for better performance
const expr = parse('user.age >= minAge')
expr({user: {age: 25}, minAge: 18}) // true
expr({user: {age: 16}, minAge: 18}) // false

// Access parsed AST and type checking
console.log(expr.ast)        // AST representation
const typeCheck = expr.check() // Type check without evaluation

Environment API (Recommended)

For type-safe expressions with custom functions and operators:

import {Environment} from '@marcbachmann/cel-js'
class User {
  constructor ({email, age}) {
    this.email = email
    this.age = age
  }
}

const env = new Environment()
  .registerType('User', {
    fields: {
      email: 'string',
      age: 'int'
    },
    ctor: User
  })
  .registerVariable('skipAgeCheck', 'bool')
  .registerVariable('user', 'User')
  .registerConstant('minAge', 'int', 18n)
  .registerFunction('isAdult(int): bool', age => age >= 18n)
  .registerOperator('string * int', (str, n) => str.repeat(Number(n)))

// Type-checked evaluation with constant
env.evaluate(
  'skipAgeCheck || (isAdult(user.age) && (user.age >= minAge))', {
  user: new User({age: 25n}),
  skipAgeCheck: true
})

// Custom operators
env.evaluate('"Hi" * 3') // "HiHiHi"

Register constants

Use registerConstant to expose shared configuration without passing it through every evaluation context.

import {Environment} from '@marcbachmann/cel-js'

const env = new Environment()
  .registerConstant('minAge', 'int', 18n)

env.evaluate('user.age >= minAge', {user: {age: 20n}}) // true

Supported signatures:

env.registerConstant('minAge', 'int', 18n)
env.registerConstant({name: 'minAge', type: 'int', value: 18n, description: 'Minimum age'})

Environment Options

new Environment({
  // Treat undeclared variables as dynamic type
  unlistedVariablesAreDyn: false,
  // Require list/map literals to stay strictly homogeneous (default: true)
  homogeneousAggregateLiterals: true,
  // Enable .?key/.[?key] optional chaining and optional.* helpers (default: false)
  enableOptionalTypes: true,
  // Optional structural limits (parse time)
  limits: {
    maxAstNodes: 100000,
    maxDepth: 250,
    maxListElements: 1000,
    maxMapEntries: 1000,
    maxCallArguments: 32
  }
})

• Set homogeneousAggregateLiterals to false if you need aggregate literals to accept mixed element/key/value types without wrapping everything in dyn(...).
• Set enableOptionalTypes to true to activate optional chaining.

Environment Methods

• registerVariable(name, type) - Declare a variable with type checking
• registerType(typename, constructor) - Register custom types
• registerFunction(signature, handler) - Add custom functions
• registerOperator(signature, handler) - Add custom operators
• registerConstant(name, type, value) - Provide immutable values without passing them in context
• clone() - Create an isolated copy. Call that stops the parent from registering more entries.
• hasVariable(name) - Check if variable is registered
• parse(expression) - Parse expression for reuse
• evaluate(expression, context) - Evaluate with context
• check(expression) - Validate expression types without evaluation
• getDefinitions() - Returns all registered variables and functions with their types, signatures, and descriptions

registerVariable signatures

env.registerVariable('user', 'map')
env.registerVariable('user', 'map', {description: 'The current user'})
env.registerVariable('user', {type: 'map', description: 'The current user'})
env.registerVariable({name: 'user', type: 'map', description: 'The current user'})

// Passing a schema property will implicitly create a custom type and
// convert objects/maps to a new class instance. Those values then behave similar like
// explicit types that are created using a constructor.
env.registerVariable({
  name: 'user',
  schema: {
    email: 'string',
    age: 'int',
    profile: {
      tags: 'list<string>',
      avatar: 'string'
    }
  }
})

The type can be a type string (e.g. 'int', 'map', 'list<string>') or a TypeDeclaration obtained from another environment.

registerType signatures

// Name + constructor class
// when fields are not provided, own properties are accessible automatically
env.registerType('Vector', Vector)

// Name + object with constructor and field types
env.registerType('Vector', {ctor: Vector, fields: {x: 'double', y: 'double'}})

// Name + object with fields only (auto-generates a wrapper class and convert function)
env.registerType('Vector', {fields: {x: 'double', y: 'double'}})

// Name + object with nested schema (registers nested types automatically)
// But this type can only be used during variable registration.
env.registerType('Vector', {schema: {x: 'double', y: 'double'}})

// Single object with name and schema
env.registerType({name: 'Vector', schema: {x: 'double', y: 'double'}})

// Single object with constructor (name inferred from constructor)
env.registerType({ctor: Vector, fields: {x: 'double', y: 'double'}})

When fields or schema is provided without a ctor, an internal wrapper class is auto-generated and plain objects are automatically converted at runtime. A custom convert function can be passed to override this default conversion. In that case the type should only be used during variable registration.

When using the schema declaration, we're creating a new Map instance for the specific type when retrieving the values by variable from a context object.

registerFunction signatures

// Signature string + handler
env.registerFunction('greet(string): string', (name) => `Hello, ${name}!`)
env.registerFunction('greet(string): string', handler, {description: 'Greets someone'})
env.registerFunction('greet(string): string', {handler, description: 'Greets someone'})

// Single object with signature string
env.registerFunction({signature: 'add(int, int): int', handler, description: 'Adds two integers'})

// Single object with signature string and named params
env.registerFunction({
  signature: 'formatDate(int, string): string',
  handler,
  description: 'Formats a timestamp',
  params: [
    {name: 'timestamp', description: 'Unix timestamp in seconds'},
    {name: 'format', description: 'Date format string'}
  ]
})

// Single object without signature string
env.registerFunction({
  name: 'multiply',
  returnType: 'int',
  handler: (a, b) => a * b,
  description: 'Multiplies two integers',
  params: [
    {name: 'a', type: 'int', description: 'First number'},
    {name: 'b', type: 'int', description: 'Second number'}
  ]
})

// Receiver method (called as 'hello'.shout())
env.registerFunction({
  name: 'shout',
  receiverType: 'string',
  returnType: 'string',
  handler: (str) => str.toUpperCase() + '!',
  params: []
})

registerFunction (sync & async)

registerFunction(signature, handler) accepts both synchronous and async handlers. When an async function (or a macro predicate/transform that uses async functions) participates in an expression, env.evaluate() returns a Promise that resolves with the final value. Consumers should await those evaluations when they register async behavior:

const env = new Environment()
  .registerFunction('fetchUser(string): map', async (id) => {
    const res = await fetch(`/users/${id}`)
    return res.json()
  })

const user = await env.evaluate('fetchUser(userId)', {userId: '42'})

Async handlers are primarily intended for latency-sensitive lookups (e.g., cache fetches, lightweight RPC). CEL’s goal is still deterministic, predictable evaluation, so avoid building expressions that trigger unbounded async work (like nested loops within macros or large fan-out requests) even though the engine will await those results.

Environment Cloning

import assert from 'node:assert/strict'

const parent = new Environment().registerVariable('user', 'map')
const child = parent.clone()

// Parent registries is frozen once cloned
assert.throws(() => parent.registerVariable('foo', 'dyn'))

// Child stays fully extensible without deep-copy overhead
child
  .registerFunction('isAdult(map): bool', (u) => u.age >= 18n)
  .registerVariable('minAge', 'int')

child.evaluate('isAdult(user) && user.age >= minAge', {
  user: {age: 20n},
  minAge: 18n
})

Supported Types: int, uint, double, string, bool, bytes, list, map, timestamp, duration, null_type, type, dyn, or custom types

Type Checking

Validate expressions before evaluation to catch type errors early:

import {Environment, TypeError} from '@marcbachmann/cel-js'

const env = new Environment()
  .registerVariable('age', 'int')
  .registerVariable('name', 'string')

// Check expression validity
const result = env.check('age >= 18 && name.startsWith("A")')

if (result.valid) {
  console.log(`Expression is valid, returns: ${result.type}`) // bool
  // Safe to evaluate
  const value = env.evaluate('age >= 18 && name.startsWith("A")', {
    age: 25n,
    name: 'Alice'
  })
} else {
  console.error(`Type error: ${result.error.message}`)
}

// Detect errors without evaluation
const invalid = env.check('age + name') // Invalid: can't add int + string
console.log(invalid.valid) // false
console.log(invalid.error.message) // "Operator '+' not defined for types 'int' and 'string'"

Benefits:

• Catch type mismatches before runtime
• Validate user-provided expressions safely
• Get inferred return types for expressions
• Better error messages with source location

Language Features

Operators

// Arithmetic
evaluate('10 + 5 - 3')     // 12n
evaluate('10 * 5 / 2')     // 25n
evaluate('10 % 3')         // 1n

// Comparison
evaluate('5 > 3')          // true
evaluate('5 >= 5')         // true
evaluate('5 == 5')         // true
evaluate('5 != 4')         // true

// Logical
evaluate('true && false')  // false
evaluate('true || false')  // true
evaluate('!false')         // true

// Ternary
evaluate('5 > 3 ? "yes" : "no"')  // "yes"

// Membership
evaluate('2 in [1, 2, 3]')        // true
evaluate('"ell" in "hello"')      // true

Data Types

// Numbers (default to BigInt)
evaluate('42')           // 42n
evaluate('3.14')         // 3.14
evaluate('0xFF')         // 255n

// Strings
evaluate('"hello"')      // "hello"
evaluate('r"\\n"')       // "\\n" (raw string)
evaluate('"""multi\nline"""')  // "multi\nline\n"

// Bytes
evaluate('b"hello"')     // Uint8Array
evaluate('b"\\xFF"')     // Uint8Array [255]

// Collections
evaluate('[1, 2, 3]')           // [1n, 2n, 3n]
evaluate('{name: "Alice"}')     // {name: "Alice"}

// Other
evaluate('true')         // true
evaluate('null')         // null

Built-in Functions

// Type conversion
evaluate('string(123)')           // "123"
evaluate('int("42")')             // 42n
evaluate('double("3.14")')        // 3.14
evaluate('bytes("hello")')        // Uint8Array
evaluate('dyn(42)')               // Converts to dynamic type

// Collections
evaluate('size([1, 2, 3])')       // 3n
evaluate('size("hello")')         // 5n
evaluate('size({a: 1, b: 2})')    // 2n

// Time
evaluate('timestamp("2024-01-01T00:00:00Z")')  // Date

// Type checking
evaluate('type(42)')              // int
evaluate('type("hello")')         // string

String Methods

evaluate('"hello".contains("ell")')         // true
evaluate('"hello".startsWith("he")')        // true
evaluate('"hello".endsWith("lo")')          // true
evaluate('"hello".matches("h.*o")')         // true
evaluate('"hello".size()')                  // 5n
evaluate('"hello".indexOf("ll")')           // 2n
evaluate('"hello world".indexOf("o", 5)')   // 7n (search from index 5)
evaluate('"hello".lastIndexOf("l")')        // 3n
evaluate('"hello".substring(1)')            // "ello"
evaluate('"hello".substring(1, 4)')         // "ell"

List Methods

evaluate('[1, 2, 3].size()')                // 3n
evaluate('["a", "b", "c"].join()')          // "abc"
evaluate('["a", "b", "c"].join(", ")')      // "a, b, c"

Bytes Methods

evaluate('b"hello".size()')                 // 5n
evaluate('b"hello".string()')               // "hello"
evaluate('b"hello".hex()')                  // "68656c6c6f"
evaluate('b"hello".base64()')               // "aGVsbG8="
evaluate('b"{\\"x\\": 42}".json()')         // {x: 42n}
evaluate('b"hello".at(0)')                  // 104n (byte value at index)

Timestamp Methods

All timestamp methods support an optional timezone parameter (e.g., "America/New_York", "UTC"):

const ctx = {t: new Date('2024-01-15T14:30:45.123Z')}

evaluate('t.getFullYear()', ctx)            // 2024n
evaluate('t.getMonth()', ctx)               // 0n (January, 0-indexed)
evaluate('t.getDayOfMonth()', ctx)          // 15n
evaluate('t.getDayOfWeek()', ctx)           // 1n (Monday, 0=Sunday)
evaluate('t.getDayOfYear()', ctx)           // 15n
evaluate('t.getHours()', ctx)               // 14n
evaluate('t.getMinutes()', ctx)             // 30n
evaluate('t.getSeconds()', ctx)             // 45n
evaluate('t.getMilliseconds()', ctx)        // 123n

// With timezone
evaluate('t.getHours("America/New_York")', ctx)  // 9n (UTC-5)

Macros

const ctx = {
  numbers: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5],
  users: [
    {name: 'Alice', admin: true},
    {name: 'Bob', admin: false}
  ]
}

// Check property exists
evaluate('has(user.email)', {user: {}})  // false

// All elements match
evaluate('numbers.all(n, n > 0)', ctx)   // true

// Any element matches
evaluate('numbers.exists(n, n > 3)', ctx)  // true

// Exactly one matches
evaluate('numbers.exists_one(n, n == 3)', ctx)  // true

// Transform
evaluate('numbers.map(n, n * 2)', ctx)
// [2n, 4n, 6n, 8n, 10n]

// Filter
evaluate('numbers.filter(n, n > 2)', ctx)
// [3n, 4n, 5n]

// Filter + Transform
evaluate('users.filter(u, u.admin).map(u, u.name)', ctx)

// Bind a temporary value within the expression
evaluate('cel.bind(total, users.map(u, u.admin, u.score).sum(), total >= 90)', ctx)

// Or using three arg form of .map
evaluate('users.map(u, u.admin, u.name)', ctx)
// ["Alice"]

Custom macros

You can register your own macros by declaring overloads that accept ast arguments. The macro handler executes at parse time and must return an object that provides both typeCheck and evaluate hooks; these hooks are invoked later during env.check() and env.evaluate() so the macro lines up with the regular type-checker/evaluator pipeline.

import {Environment} from '@marcbachmann/cel-js'

const env = new Environment()
env.registerFunction('macro(ast): dyn', ({ast, args}) => {
  // Any parameter on this object are available as
  // the `macro` parameter within the `typeCheck` and `evaluate` functions below.
  return {
    // e.g. you can precompute values during parse time
    firstArgument: args[0],
    // Mandatory: called when the expression is type-checked
    typeCheck(checker, macro, ctx) {
      return checker.check(macro.firstArgument, ctx)
    },
    // Mandatory: called when the expression is evaluated
    evaluate(evaluator, macro, ctx) {
      return evaluator.eval(macro.firstArgument, ctx)
    }
  }
})

Custom Types

import {Environment} from '@marcbachmann/cel-js'

class Vector {
  constructor(x, y) {
    this.x = x
    this.y = y
  }
  add(other) {
    return new Vector(this.x + other.x, this.y + other.y)
  }
}

const env = new Environment()
  .registerType('Vector', Vector)
  .registerVariable('v1', 'Vector')
  .registerVariable('v2', 'Vector')
  .registerOperator('Vector + Vector', (a, b) => a.add(b))
  .registerFunction('magnitude(Vector): double', (v) =>
    Math.sqrt(v.x * v.x + v.y * v.y)
  )

const result = env.evaluate('magnitude(v1 + v2)', {
  v1: new Vector(3, 4),
  v2: new Vector(1, 2)
})
// 7.211102550927978

Performance

There are a few expressions compared with the cel-js module in ./benchmark/comparison.js where @marcbachmann/cel-js is about 10x faster in average.

Benchmark results comparing against the cel-js package on Node.js v24.13.1(Macbook Air, Apple Silicon M3).

$ ./benchmark/comparison.js

marcbachmann parse (variable lookups)         x 6,491,393 ops/sec (10 runs sampled) min..max=(149.34ns...156.11ns)
chromeGG/cel parse (variable lookups)         x 530,216 ops/sec (12 runs sampled) min..max=(1.56us...2.04us)
marcbachmann evaluate (variable lookups)      x 14,026,229 ops/sec (10 runs sampled) min..max=(70.35ns...71.76ns)
chromeGG/cel evaluate (variable lookups)      x 997,079 ops/sec (10 runs sampled) min..max=(970.67ns...1.01us)
marcbachmann parse (check container ports)    x 533,663 ops/sec (11 runs sampled) min..max=(1.86us...1.88us)
chromeGG/cel parse (check container ports)    x 64,376 ops/sec (9 runs sampled) min..max=(15.24us...15.91us)
marcbachmann evaluate (check container ports) x 2,121,321 ops/sec (11 runs sampled) min..max=(463.34ns...478.94ns)
chromeGG/cel evaluate (check container ports) x 210,473 ops/sec (10 runs sampled) min..max=(4.51us...5.14us)
marcbachmann parse (check jwt claims)         x 554,418 ops/sec (10 runs sampled) min..max=(1.76us...1.81us)
chromeGG/cel parse (check jwt claims)         x 60,222 ops/sec (12 runs sampled) min..max=(13.73us...17.89us)
marcbachmann evaluate (check jwt claims)      x 1,716,346 ops/sec (11 runs sampled) min..max=(579.29ns...588.51ns)
chromeGG/cel evaluate (check jwt claims)      x 152,115 ops/sec (9 runs sampled) min..max=(6.37us...6.57us)
marcbachmann parse (access log filtering)     x 1,297,845 ops/sec (11 runs sampled) min..max=(762.15ns...784.65ns)
chromeGG/cel parse (access log filtering)     x 127,437 ops/sec (12 runs sampled) min..max=(6.68us...8.28us)
marcbachmann evaluate (access log filtering)  x 3,507,039 ops/sec (10 runs sampled) min..max=(281.53ns...286.70ns)
chromeGG/cel evaluate (access log filtering)  x 409,620 ops/sec (10 runs sampled) min..max=(2.38us...2.51us)

To run the benchmarks against previous versions of this module, you can run ./benchmark/index.js.

Error Handling

import {evaluate, ParseError, EvaluationError, TypeError} from '@marcbachmann/cel-js'

try {
  evaluate('invalid + + syntax')
} catch (error) {
  if (error instanceof ParseError) {
    console.error('Syntax error:', error.message)
  } else if (error instanceof EvaluationError) {
    console.error('Runtime error:', error.message)
  }
}

// Type checking returns errors without throwing
const env = new Environment().registerVariable('x', 'int')
const result = env.check('x + "string"')
if (!result.valid && result.error instanceof TypeError) {
  console.error('Type error:', result.error.message)
}

Examples

Authorization Rules

import {Environment} from '@marcbachmann/cel-js'

// Instantiating an environment is expensive, please do that outside hot code paths
const authEnv = new Environment()
  .registerVariable('user', 'map')
  .registerVariable('resource', 'map')

const canEdit = authEnv.parse(`
  user.isActive &&
  (user.role == "admin" ||
  user.id == resource.ownerId)
`)

canEdit({
  user: {id: 123, role: 'user', isActive: true},
  resource: {ownerId: 123}
}) // true

Data Validation

import {Environment} from '@marcbachmann/cel-js'

// Instantiating an environment is expensive, please do that outside hot code paths
const validator = new Environment()
  .registerVariable('email', 'string')
  .registerVariable('age', 'int')
  .registerFunction('isValidEmail(string): bool',
    email => /^[^\s@]+@[^\s@]+\.[^\s@]+$/.test(email)
  )

const valid = validator.evaluate(
  'isValidEmail(email) && age >= 18 && age < 120',
  {email: '[email protected]', age: 25n}
)

Feature Flags

import {parse} from '@marcbachmann/cel-js'

const flags = {
  'new-dashboard': parse(
    'user.betaUser || user.id in allowedUserIds'
  ),
  'premium-features': parse(
    'user.subscription == "pro" && !user.trialExpired'
  )
}

function isEnabled(feature, context) {
  return flags[feature]?.(context) ?? false
}

TypeScript

Full TypeScript support included:

import {Environment, evaluate, ParseError} from '@marcbachmann/cel-js'

// Instantiating an environment is expensive, please do that outside hot code paths
const env = new Environment()
  .registerVariable('count', 'int')
  .registerFunction('multiplyByTwo(int): int', (x) => x * 2n)

const result: any = env.evaluate('multiplyByTwo(count)', {count: 21n})

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please open an issue before submitting major changes.

# Run tests
npm test

# Run benchmarks
npm run benchmark

# Run in watch mode
npm run test:watch

License

MIT © Marc Bachmann

See Also

• CEL Specification
• CEL Go Implementation