CLI Reference #

Every lvkit command, with its arguments, options, and a worked example. Each page documents one command exhaustively; this page is the map.

Run lvkit <command> --help at any time for the same argument listing offline.

Reads, never writes #

lvkit only ever reads a VI — it never modifies, re-saves, or edits one. Your files are never touched, and LabVIEW stays the only thing that authors them.

Does lvkit modify my VIs? No. It's strictly read-only. This holds for every command, including generate: converting a VI parses it and emits a separate Python file — it never edits the source .vi.

Understand a VI #

Read-only commands that turn a .vi binary into something you can read, review, or search. None of these require a primitive or vi.lib mapping to be resolved first.

  • describe — human-readable signature, inputs/outputs, operations, and control flow.
  • structure — inspect the members of a .lvlib or .lvclass.
  • render — a faithful, interactive block-diagram SVG.
  • visualize — an interactive dataflow or dependency graph across a whole library.
  • docs — cross-referenced HTML documentation for a VI, library, or class.

Track changes #

  • diff — compare two versions of a VI: terminals, operations, and wiring.

Convert #

  • generate — deterministically generate Python from a VI, library, or class. Unlike the commands above, generate requires every primitive and vi.lib call it hits to resolve — see Unresolved calls.

Set up & integrate #

  • setup — install AI agent skills and create the project-local .lvkit/ store.
  • detect — find a locally installed LabVIEW and its vi.lib / user.lib.
  • mcp — run the MCP server so an AI agent can query VIs interactively.

Shared options #

  • SubVI & vi.lib resolution — the --search-path, --vilib, --userlib, --project-root, and --no-auto-vilib flags shared by describe, generate, docs, visualize, diff, and render, explained once.
  • Netlist — the node-first text grammar shared by describe --verbose's ## Netlist section, diff's text output, and the interactive diff viewer's Tree change list.

lvkit is an independent, clean-room project, not affiliated with, authorized by, endorsed by, or sponsored by NI. LabVIEW, NI, and National Instruments are trademarks of National Instruments Corporation, used only to identify the file format lvkit reads.