ochre CLI

Command-line interface for the ochre syntax highlighter.

Synopsis

ochre LANG [FILE] [--theme NAME_OR_PATH] [--theme-dark NAME_OR_PATH] [--theme-light NAME_OR_PATH] [--grammar FILE]... [--format FORMAT]

Arguments

• LANG — Language identifier (e.g. ocaml, javascript, python). Required.
• FILE — Input file path. Optional when piping/redirection stdin is used.

Options

• --theme NAME_OR_PATH, -t NAME_OR_PATH — Optional. Built-in theme name (for example dark, light, or tokyonight) or path to a VS Code / TextMate theme JSON file.
• --theme-dark NAME_OR_PATH — Theme used when terminal mode is detected as dark (same name-or-path resolution as --theme).
• --theme-light NAME_OR_PATH — Theme used when terminal mode is detected as light (same name-or-path resolution as --theme).
• --grammar FILE, -g FILE — Path to a .tmLanguage.json grammar file. Can be specified multiple times.
• --format FORMAT, -f FORMAT — Output format: html (default), ansi, or tokens.

Examples

Highlight an OCaml file to HTML

ochre ocaml file.ml --grammar ./grammars/ocaml.tmLanguage.json --theme theme.json

Highlight from stdin with ANSI terminal colors:

cat file.js | ochre javascript --grammar ./grammars/javascript.tmLanguage.json --format ansi

Load multiple grammars (e.g. for embedded languages)

ochre html index.html \
  --grammar ./grammars/html.tmLanguage.json \
  --grammar ./grammars/css.tmLanguage.json \
  --grammar ./grammars/javascript.tmLanguage.json \
  --theme theme.json

or using the short flag:

ochre html index.html -g ./grammars/html.tmLanguage.json -g ./grammars/css.tmLanguage.json -g ./grammars/javascript.tmLanguage.json

Grammars

Each --grammar flag takes a path to a .tmLanguage.json file. The language identifier is derived from the filename (e.g. ocaml.tmLanguage.json registers as ocaml).

Common sources for grammars:

• VS Code extensions: ~/.vscode/extensions/
• shikijs/textmate-grammars-themes on GitHub

Themes

Themes use the VS Code / TextMate JSON format with colors and tokenColors fields. See VS Code Theme Gallery for available themes.

For the CLI, --theme is optional. ochre uses a built-in theme and auto-picks dark/light from your terminal (using OCHRE_THEME_MODE, TERM_THEME, or COLORFGBG).

You can also pass a built-in name directly, for example --theme dark, instead of a file path.

Built-in themes:

• dark — Default dark ochre theme
• light — Default light ochre theme
• tokyonight — Based on the Tokyonight theme
• everforest — Based on the Everforest theme
• ayu — Based on the Ayu dark theme
• catppuccin — Based on the Catppuccin theme
• catppuccin-macchiato — Based on the Catppuccin theme
• gruvbox — Based on the Gruvbox theme
• kanagawa — Based on the Kanagawa theme
• nord — Based on the Nord theme
• matrix — Hacker-style green on black theme
• one-dark — Based on the Atom One Dark theme