wire-lang

Getting started

This guide installs Wire Lang, walks through your first .wire file, and renders it to an SVG diagram — first from the command line, then from JavaScript or TypeScript. It takes about five minutes and needs Node.js 20 or newer.

1. Install

Wire Lang ships as a single npm package called wire-lang. It contains the library API and the wire command-line binary. Install it into a project: 

npm install wire-lang

You can also run the CLI without installing it permanently using npx, shown below. Wire Lang is ESM-only and requires Node.js 20+.

2. Write a .wire file

Create a file named led.wire. Every Wire Lang document begins with the schematic keyword, then declares components and the nets that connect their terminals. The example below describes a 5 V battery driving a red LED through a current-limiting resistor: 

schematic
  title "LED current limiting circuit"
  description "A 5V battery drives a red LED through a 220 ohm resistor."

  component BT1 Battery voltage=5V
  component R1 Resistor value=220ohm
  component D1 LED color=red

  net VCC: BT1.+, R1.1
  connect R1.2, D1.A
  net GND: D1.C, BT1.-

  annotation "Current limiting resistor" near R1
  render direction=left-to-right

A few things to notice. BT1, R1, and D1 are component instances with unique IDs. Battery, Resistor, and LED are component types from the standard library. VCC and GND are named nets that join terminals such as BT1.+ (the battery's positive terminal) and R1.1 (resistor pin 1). The connect statement creates an anonymous net between two terminals. See the syntax reference for every statement.

3. Render it from the CLI

Use wire render to turn the source into a standalone SVG file: 

npx wire render led.wire --out led.svg

There is no preview server — open the generated led.svg directly in a browser or image viewer. To validate a file without producing output, use wire check; to re-render automatically while you edit, use wire watch. The CLI usage guide covers all three commands.

Rendered SVG schematic: a 5V battery, a 220 ohm resistor, and a red LED connected in series.
led.svg rendered by Wire Lang

4. Render it from JavaScript or TypeScript

The same pipeline is available programmatically. The happy-path API is renderSvg, which takes source and returns an SVG string: 

import { renderSvg } from "wire-lang";

const source = `schematic
  component R1 Resistor value=220ohm
  component D1 LED color=red
  net VCC: R1.1
  connect R1.2, D1.A
  net GND: D1.C`;

const svg = renderSvg(source); // SVG string, or throws WireLangError

For tooling and AI authoring you can also call parse and compile directly to get the AST, the normalized schematic model, and structured diagnostics: 

import { compile, parse, renderSvg } from "wire-lang";

const parsed = parse(source);  // public AST, or partial AST + diagnostics
const model = compile(source); // renderer-independent schematic model
const svg = renderSvg(source); // SVG string, or throws WireLangError

5. Generate Wire Lang with AI

Wire Lang is built for AI-assisted authoring. Diagnostics carry source locations and suggested fixes so an agent can self-correct, and the CLI speaks JSON (wire check led.wire --json). A bundled Agent Skill teaches assistants the syntax and component library: 

npx skills add eduardozf/wire-lang --skill wire-lang

Next steps

← Overview Syntax reference →