StringKnife

A surgical string transformation toolkit for the Zed editor, delivered as an LSP-based extension with code-action transforms.

Features

Select text in any file, then trigger code actions to transform it in place:

Category	Operations
Encoding	Base64, Base64URL, URL, HTML, Hex encode/decode, Unicode escape/unescape, JWT decode (header/payload/full)
Hashing	MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512, CRC32
Case	UPPER, lower, Title, Sentence, camelCase, PascalCase, snake_case, SCREAMING_SNAKE, kebab-case, dot.case, path/case, CONSTANT_CASE, Toggle
JSON	Pretty print, minify, escape, unescape
XML	Pretty print, minify
CSV	CSV to JSON
Whitespace	Trim, collapse, remove blanks/dupes, sort/reverse/shuffle/number lines
Escape	Backslash, regex, SQL, shell, CSV
Inspect	Character count, byte length, encoding detection
Misc	Reverse string

64 code actions across 10 categories. See CHANGELOG for the full feature list and roadmap for the plan.

Usage

1. Select text in any file
2. Press Cmd+. (macOS) or Ctrl+. (Linux) to open the code actions menu — or right-click the selection
3. Pick a StringKnife transform — the selected text is replaced in place

Only transforms that produce a different result are shown. For example, "Base64 Decode" won't appear if the selection isn't valid Base64.

Installation

From Zed Extensions

1. Open Zed
2. Cmd+Shift+P → "zed: extensions"
3. Search for StringKnife and install

Configuration

Configure StringKnife through Zed's settings.json. All settings are optional — the defaults work out of the box.

Setting	Type	Default	Description
stringknife.enabledCategories	string[]	All categories	Which transform categories to show. Valid: encoding, hashing, case, json, xml, csv, whitespace, escape, inspect, misc
stringknife.maxCodeActions	number	50	Maximum number of code actions shown in the context menu
stringknife.smartDetection	boolean	true	When true, decode actions only appear if the selection looks like that encoding. When false, all decode actions are shown unconditionally
stringknife.hashOutputFormat	string	"lowercase"	Hash digest format: "lowercase" or "uppercase"
stringknife.jsonIndent	number	2	Spaces per indent level for JSON Pretty Print
stringknife.base64LineBreaks	boolean	false	Wrap Base64 output at 76 characters per line (MIME style)

Example settings.json

{
  "lsp": {
    "stringknife-lsp": {
      "initialization_options": {
        "enabledCategories": ["encoding", "hashing", "case", "json"],
        "maxCodeActions": 20,
        "smartDetection": true,
        "hashOutputFormat": "uppercase",
        "jsonIndent": 4,
        "base64LineBreaks": false
      }
    }
  }
}

Supported Languages

StringKnife works in any file type. The LSP activates for: Rust, TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Go, Ruby, HTML, CSS, JSON, TOML, YAML, Markdown, Plain Text, C, C++, Java, Kotlin, Swift, Shell Script, SQL, Elixir, and PHP.

Contributing

See HINTS.md for style conventions and the Adding a New Transform guide.

Architecture

StringKnife is a three-layer stack — arrows point downward only:

WASM Extension (src/lib.rs)          → Zed API surface, starts the LSP binary
LSP Server     (stringknife-lsp/)    → JSON-RPC dispatch, code action routing
Transform Core (stringknife-core/)   → Pure functions: fn(&str) -> Result<String>

The transform layer has zero LSP dependencies, no I/O, and no side effects.

Built with ariscan

This repository uses ariscan to measure AI-agent readiness at every phase gate. The ARI (Agent Readiness Index) tracks how well the codebase supports autonomous agent contributions across 8 pillars.

Checkpoint	Phase	Score
ARI-BASELINE	0	59/100

Browse the Knowledge Vault for architecture decisions, session history, and transform registry.

License

MIT