biopsy

Get files from URLs, local file system, or buffer with support for snippets and content processing.

Installation

# Install globally for CLI use
npm install -g biopsy

# Or use with npx (no installation required)
npx biopsy <src> [dst]

Usage

CLI Usage

biopsy <src> [dst]

Module Usage

import { biopsy } from 'biopsy';

const result = await biopsy('@g:microsoft/vscode/package.json');
console.log(result.content);

Arguments

src (required)

Source can be:

• Local file path: ./file.txt, /path/to/file.js
• HTTP/HTTPS URL: https://example.com/file.json
• Snippet: @g:user/repo/file.js (see snippets below)
• Buffer/stdin: _ (reads from stdin)

dst (optional)

Destination can be:

• File path: output.txt (saves to file)
• Directory: ./outputs/ (saves with original filename)
• Command: :j, :b (processes content, outputs to stdout)
• Stdout: - or omit for stdout

Snippets

| Snippet | Description | Example | |---------|-------------|---------| | @g:user/repo/file | GitHub | @g:microsoft/vscode/package.json | | @@:repo/file | n-p-x GitHub org | @@:biopsy/README.md | | @l:user/repo/file | GitLab | @l:gitlab-org/gitlab/package.json | | @b:user/repo/file | Bitbucket | @b:atlassian/bitbucket/package.json | | @s:gist_id | GitHub Gist | @s:1234567890abcdef | | @p:paste_id | Pastebin | @p:abcd1234 |

Commands

| Command | Description | Example | |---------|-------------|---------| | :j | JSON stringify (pretty print) | biopsy data.json :j | | :b | Base64 encode | biopsy file.txt :b |

Examples

# Fetch from GitHub and display
biopsy @g:microsoft/vscode/package.json

# Fetch from GitHub and pretty-print JSON
biopsy @g:microsoft/vscode/package.json :j

# Fetch from n-p-x org
biopsy @@:create-ts-project/package.json

# Download from URL to local file
biopsy https://example.com/data.json ./local-data.json

# Read from stdin and encode as base64
echo "Hello World" | biopsy _ :b

# Convert local file to base64
biopsy ./image.png :b > encoded.txt

# Process stdin JSON
echo '{"name":"test"}' | biopsy _ :j

# Save to directory with original filename
biopsy @g:microsoft/vscode/README.md ./downloads/

API

biopsy(src, dst)

Returns a promise that resolves to:

{
  content: string,  // The file content
  path: string     // The output path (or '-' for stdout)
}

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18.0.0 (for built-in fetch support)

License

ISC