clr.core.cli
September 27, 2025 · View on GitHub
An implementation of the Clojure CLI tool and deps.edn tooling for ClojureCLR.
For ClojureCLR on .NET 6 and later.
Releases
The current release is 0.1.0-alpha8.
Installation
Prerequisite: ClojureCLR must be installed as a tool. See Getting started (ClojureCLR).
cljr is also installed as a tool.
To install as a global tool:
dotnet tool install -g Clojure.Cljr --version 0.1.0-alpha8
To install as a local tool:
dotnet new tool-manifest # if you are setting up this repo
dotnet tool install --local Clojure.Cljr --version 0.1.0-alpha8
For other installation approaches, check out the Clojure.Cljr Nuget page.
Running cljr
Once installed, you should ube able to invoke (globally or locally) via cljr.
An introduction to deps.edn and the CLI
You can start by reading these references:
- Clojure CLI Reference
- Ignore the nstallation and usage sections; we'll cover this below.
- deps.edn Reference
Functionality
A significant portion of the functionality of the JVM version is available. Some parts await development. Some likly will never be implemented.
There are two ways to invoke the JVM tool: as 'clj' and as 'clojure'.
As the docs state: "In general, you can treat these interchangeably but clj includes rlwrap for extended keyboard editing, particularly useful with the REPL.
This reference uses clj for REPL examples and clojure for non-REPL examples."
cljr does not have this distinction (for now). There is just cljr.
The status of the primary commands and the command line options is detailed below.
In general terms, tools and deps prep are not supported yet. Anything related to Maven or JVM is not supported.
Most other things are ready for testing.
| Command | Invocation | Implemented? |
|---|---|---|
| Start a repl (default) | cljr [clj-opts] [-Aaliases] | Yes |
| Execute a function (-X) | cljr [clj-opts] -Xaliases my/fn? [kpath v ... ] kv-map? | Yes |
| Run a tool (-T) | cljr [clj-opts] -T[name|aliases] my/fn [kpath v ...] kv-map? | Not yet |
| Run a main namespace or script (-M) | cljr [clj-opts] -M[aliases] [init-opts] [main-opts] [args] | Yes |
The status of the options:
| Option | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|
| exec-opts: | ||
| -Aaliases | Apply aliases | Supported |
| -X[aliases] | Invoke function, using aliases | Supported |
| -Ttoolname | Invoke tool by local name | Supported |
| -T[aliases] | Invoke tool using aliases | Supported |
| -M[aliases] | Invoke clojure.main, using aliases | Supported |
| -P | Prepare deps but don't exec | Not yet |
| clj-opts: | ||
| -Jopt | Pass JVM option | Irrelevant |
| -Sdeps EDN | Extra deps.edn data | Supported |
| -Srepro | Ignore user deps.edn file | Supported |
| -Spath | Compute and echo classpath | Supported |
| -Stree | Print dependency tree | Supported |
| -Scp CP | Use this classpath, ignore deps.edn | Supported |
| -Sforce | Force classpath computation | Supported |
| -Sverbose | Print path info | Supported |
| -Sdescribe | Print env and command parsing info | Supported |
| -Sthreads | Set specific number of download threads | Not supported |
| -Strace | Write dep expansion trace.edn | Supported |
| --version | Print version to stdout and exit | Supported |
| -version | Print version to stderr and exit | Supported |
| --help -h -? | Print this help message | Supported |
| Programs provided by :deps alias: | ||
| -X:deps list | Print deps list+licenses | Supported |
| -X:deps tree | Print deps tree | Supported |
| -X:deps find-versions | Find available lib versions | Supported |
| -X:deps prep | Prepare all unprepped libs in deps | Not supported (yet) |
| -X:deps mvn-pom | Generate pom.xml for deps.edn | Not supported |
| -X:deps mvn-install | Install maven jar to local repo | Not supported |
deps.edn features
Most of the features of deps.edn files are supported.
-- We support git lib and local directory dependencies only. We do not support maven dependencie or local jars. (Though we should have a discussion about the latter.) -- We are still thinking about how nuget might come into play. It's complicated. -- We do not yet have support for tool publishing and preparation steps. See below.
Generally, one puts a deps.edn file in the root directory of your code. However, for projects that support multiple Clojure ports (JVM, CLR, Clojurescript), this will not always work.
For example, the JVM version may want to use Maven repos for dependencies, which the CLR version does not support.
However, we cannot just read-conditionalization the deps.edn file because read-conditionalization is not supported in EDN files.
The workaround is that cljr will look for a file named deps-clr.edn first, then look for deps.edn. This provides an override that cljr can see and the JVM tools will ignore.
Running tests
If you would like to run tests of your project from the command line, you can take advantage of a port of cognitect-labs/test-runner available at dmiller/test-runner.
(If you want to look at the code, look in branch clr-port.)
Here is a sample deps.edn file set up to use this port of test-runner:
{:paths ["src/main/clojure"]
:deps
{io.github.clojure/clr.data.generators {:git/tag "v1.1.0" :git/sha "d25d292"}}
:aliases
{:test
{:extra-paths ["src/test/clojure"]
:extra-deps {io.github.dmiller/test-runner {:git/tag "v0.5.1clr" :git/sha "814e06f"}}
:exec-fn cognitect.test-runner.api/test
:exec-args {:dirs ["src/test/clojure"]}}}}
You would invoke test running via
cljr -X:test
Things that need work
This is an alpha release. Have at it.
Tools and prepping
We need some design thinking around tools and prepping. Most of the library support on the JVM side are very specific to the JVM world: Maven, jars, Java-ish things.
What is needed to support robust program development and installation in the CLR world?
Clojure versioning
One thing supported on the JVM side is the ability to specify the version of Clojure(JVM) that you want to run under. This is fairly easily accommodated. Clojure(JVM) is available as a Maven artifact. Specify the desired version of Clojure in your application's :deps. That version will get downloaded and added to the classpath. And off you go.
We are in a different world entirely on the CLR side. We don't have a seamless way of incorporating general assemblies into program loading. At present, ClojureCLR is usually installed as a dotnet tool.
How can we provide ClojureCLR runtime versioning?
Nuget
How can we incorporate Nuget packages into the mix. I can write a Nuget provider that pulls down and caches a Nuget package. (I found an open-source library that does this; it's pretty easy to adapt to our needs.) The problem is the variety of things that Nuget package might contain and how it can be used. It could be a collection of assemblies. It could be the kind of packaging I've been doing for ClojureCLR libraries: an assembly containing Clojure source files as embedded resources. (In some ways, I regret that choice.) A Nuget package could contain Clojure source files in a library folder.
What design will work for us?
Copyright and License
Copyright © Rich Hickey and contributors
All rights reserved. The use and distribution terms for this software are covered by the Eclipse Public License 1.0 which can be found in the file epl-v10.html at the root of this distribution. By using this software in any fashion, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of this license. You must not remove this notice, or any other, from this software.