Is tree-sitter-cli in the official Debian repositories?

Yes, but the official Debian archive ships tree-sitter-cli 0.22.6, while this repository serves tree-sitter-cli 0.27.0, rebuilt within hours of each upstream release.

How do I install the latest tree-sitter-cli on Debian?

Add the deb.griffo.io repository once using the instructions above, then run: sudo apt install tree-sitter-cli. New releases arrive through the normal sudo apt upgrade.

Are the packages signed and how are they built?

Every package is signed with the repository's GPG key (EA0F721D231FDD3A0A17B9AC7808B4DD62C41256) and built from upstream releases in public GitHub packaging repositories that anyone can inspect.

Which Debian releases are supported?

Debian 12 Bookworm, Debian 13 Trixie, Forky and Sid.

Install Latest tree-sitter-cli on Debian via apt

Source	Version
deb.griffo.io	0.27.0 ✅
Official Debian	0.22.6 🛑

← Back to home

📌 Installing on a specific release? Debian 12 (bookworm) · Debian 13 (trixie) · Debian 14 (forky) · Debian Sid

What is tree-sitter-cli?

tree-sitter-cli is the command-line tool for developing Tree-sitter parsers. Tree-sitter is a parser generator and an incremental parsing library: it builds a concrete syntax tree for a source file and updates it cheaply as the file is edited, which is why Neovim, Helix, Zed and GitHub use it for highlighting, folding, text objects and code navigation. The CLI is how grammars get made: it scaffolds a grammar repository, generates a C parser from grammar.js, compiles it to a shared library or to WebAssembly, runs corpus tests, parses, queries, highlights and tags files, and serves a web playground. It is a single Rust binary, and the command you type is tree-sitter.

            🚀 Why Latest Versions Matter: grammars move with the CLI: the current parser ABI, the tree-sitter.json layout that tree-sitter init writes and the built-in QuickJS runtime behind --js-runtime native all arrived after the versions frozen into the archives. A grammar repository generated with a current CLI expects the same or newer on every contributor's machine and in CI. Debian stable's 0.22.6 and Ubuntu 24.04's 0.20.8 predate most of that, and upstream's own Linux binaries need glibc 2.39, so they do not even start on Debian 12 or Ubuntu 22.04.
        

⚡ Key Features of tree-sitter-cli

🧱 Grammar Repositories in One Command

tree-sitter init asks a few questions and writes grammar.js, tree-sitter.json and the binding and package files, so the grammar is ready to publish for Node.js, Python, Rust, Go, Swift and C from day one.

⚙️ Parser Generation

tree-sitter generate turns grammar.js into a dependency-free C parser in src/ and reports conflicts. It runs the grammar with node, or with the built-in QuickJS runtime via --js-runtime native.

🔨 Native and WebAssembly Builds

tree-sitter build compiles the parser into a shared library that editors load, and --wasm produces a .wasm module for web-tree-sitter and the playground.

🧪 Corpus Tests

tree-sitter test parses the examples under test/corpus, compares the trees with the expected S-expressions and runs highlight and tag tests too. --update rewrites the expectations after an intended change.

🔍 Parse, Query, Highlight, Tag

parse prints the syntax tree, query runs a .scm query and lists its captures, highlight renders to the terminal or to HTML, and tags extracts definitions and references.

🛝 Web Playground

tree-sitter playground serves a local page where you type code, watch the tree update as you edit and run queries against it, which is the fastest way to see why a rule does not match.

            🚀 Always ahead of the official archives: Debian and Ubuntu freeze package versions when a release ships. This repository publishes new upstream releases typically within hours. A simple apt upgrade keeps you on the latest version.
        

📦 Installation from deb.griffo.io

Run the commands

Step 1: Add Repository

sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://deb.griffo.io/EA0F721D231FDD3A0A17B9AC7808B4DD62C41256.asc | sudo gpg --dearmor --yes -o /etc/apt/keyrings/deb.griffo.io.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/deb.griffo.io.gpg] https://deb.griffo.io/apt $(lsb_release -sc 2>/dev/null) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/deb.griffo.io.list > /dev/null
sudo apt update

install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://deb.griffo.io/EA0F721D231FDD3A0A17B9AC7808B4DD62C41256.asc | gpg --dearmor --yes -o /etc/apt/keyrings/deb.griffo.io.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/deb.griffo.io.gpg] https://deb.griffo.io/apt $(lsb_release -sc 2>/dev/null) main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/deb.griffo.io.list > /dev/null
apt update

sudo apt install extrepo
sudo extrepo enable griffo
sudo apt update

🆓 There is an always-free mirror. deb-free.griffo.io serves packages free forever, no account, no subscription, at most 2 months behind upstream, security fixes immediately. It currently carries cliamp, Ghostty, lazydocker, Oh My Posh, Uncloud and Zed; tree-sitter-cli is not one of them, so the repository above is the only way to get it today, ask and it can be enrolled.

How the free mirror works →

🧩 About the extrepo option. extrepo is Debian's own tool for external repositories: it writes the sources file and installs the signing key for you, checking the key against signed metadata first. This repository is registered with it as griffo, and the always-free mirror as griffo-free, so on Debian (bookworm, trixie, forky and sid) the commands above are the whole setup.

extrepo sets up the sources file and the key only, so a subscription's credentials still go in /etc/apt/auth.conf.d/deb.griffo.io.conf. Ubuntu is not covered, because extrepo publishes metadata for Debian suites only: there, use the sudo or root commands.

Step 2: Install tree-sitter-cli

# Install latest tree-sitter-cli
sudo apt install tree-sitter-cli

# Verify installation, the command is tree-sitter and not tree-sitter-cli
tree-sitter --version

# Install latest tree-sitter-cli
apt install tree-sitter-cli

# Verify installation, the command is tree-sitter and not tree-sitter-cli
tree-sitter --version

Step 3: Create your first grammar

# The command is tree-sitter. Building and testing parsers needs a C compiler,
# and generate runs grammar.js with node unless you pick the built-in runtime
sudo apt install build-essential nodejs

# Scaffold a grammar repository, answering a few questions
mkdir tree-sitter-mylang && cd tree-sitter-mylang
tree-sitter init

# Generate the parser, compile it and run the corpus tests
tree-sitter generate
tree-sitter build
tree-sitter test

# bash, zsh, fish and nushell completions ship with the package
tree-sitter --help

# The command is tree-sitter. Building and testing parsers needs a C compiler,
# and generate runs grammar.js with node unless you pick the built-in runtime
apt install build-essential nodejs

# Scaffold a grammar repository, answering a few questions
mkdir tree-sitter-mylang && cd tree-sitter-mylang
tree-sitter init

# Generate the parser, compile it and run the corpus tests
tree-sitter generate
tree-sitter build
tree-sitter test

# bash, zsh, fish and nushell completions ship with the package
tree-sitter --help

🎯 Basic Usage Examples

Working on a grammar:

# Regenerate after each grammar.js change, without node, using the built-in QuickJS
tree-sitter generate --js-runtime native

# Run only the tests whose names match, then accept new output as the expectation
tree-sitter test --include 'function'
tree-sitter test --update

# Build a shared library, or a WebAssembly module for web-tree-sitter
tree-sitter build -o mylang.so
tree-sitter build --wasm

Parsing files:

# Print the syntax tree of a file
tree-sitter parse examples/hello.mylang

# Parse many files quietly and report how many succeeded
tree-sitter parse examples/*.mylang --quiet --stat

# Time a parse, useful when a grammar change slows things down
tree-sitter parse examples/big.mylang --time

Queries, highlighting and tags:

# Run a query against a file and list what it captures
tree-sitter query queries/highlights.scm examples/hello.mylang

# Highlight a file in the terminal, or render a standalone HTML page
tree-sitter highlight examples/hello.mylang
tree-sitter highlight --html examples/hello.mylang > hello.html

# Extract definitions and references with the tags query
tree-sitter tags examples/hello.mylang

Existing grammars and the playground:

# Work on an existing grammar
git clone https://github.com/tree-sitter/tree-sitter-json
cd tree-sitter-json
tree-sitter generate && tree-sitter test

# Write a config file, then list your grammar checkouts under parser-directories
tree-sitter init-config

# Build to WebAssembly and open the interactive playground in a browser
tree-sitter build --wasm
tree-sitter playground

🔧 Tool Integrations

The Tree-sitter CLI sits between a grammar and the tools that load it:

Neovim: the main branch of nvim-treesitter compiles parsers with the tree-sitter CLI and asks for a recent release, newer than Debian stable or Ubuntu LTS ship
Helix: highlighting, indents and text objects are Tree-sitter queries; check a change to highlights.scm with tree-sitter query before rebuilding grammars with hx --grammar build
Zed: language extensions pin a grammar repository and commit, so generate and test the grammar locally before bumping the pin
CI: tree-sitter generate followed by git diff --exit-code src/ fails a pull request whose committed parser is stale
Package registries: the bindings tree-sitter init writes let one grammar publish to npm, PyPI and crates.io

🚀 Why Choose deb.griffo.io?

📊 Repository Comparison:

Official Debian: ships tree-sitter-cli, but Debian 13 carries 0.22.6, older than the parser ABI and tree-sitter.json layout current grammars use, and Debian 12 has no package at all
Upstream binary: current, but upstream's prebuilt Linux binaries are linked against glibc 2.39, so they do not start on Debian 12 or Ubuntu 22.04, and they live outside apt in /usr/local/bin
cargo or npm: cargo install tree-sitter-cli needs a Rust toolchain and a full compile on every upgrade, and the npm package downloads the same prebuilt binary with the same glibc requirement
deb.griffo.io: latest version with automatic updates

✅ Same Package, Newer Version: same name as Debian's own tree-sitter-cli and the same /usr/bin/tree-sitter, so apt treats it as an upgrade and not a second installation
✅ Built From the Upstream Tag: compiled with cargo from the tagged upstream source on Ubuntu 22.04, because upstream's prebuilt Linux binaries require glibc 2.39; this one runs on every suite from Bookworm and Jammy up
✅ Automatic Updates: packages updated within hours of upstream releases
✅ Complete Package: the tree-sitter binary built from the upstream source tag, bash, zsh, fish and nushell completions, and no dependencies beyond libc6 and libgcc-s1
✅ Four Architectures: amd64, arm64, armhf and i386, so the Raspberry Pi and the old 32-bit laptop get the same tree-sitter
✅ Multi-Distribution: works on Bookworm, Trixie, Forky and Sid
✅ Easy Maintenance: standard apt commands for updates

📦 Package Build Repository

The Debian packages are automatically built and maintained in this GitHub repository:

🌲 tree-sitter-cli-debian - Latest release builds

🔗 Related Packages

Also available from deb.griffo.io:

Neovim - nvim-treesitter builds its parsers with this CLI
Helix - Editor whose highlighting and text objects are Tree-sitter queries
Zed - Editor whose language extensions ship Tree-sitter grammars
difftastic - Structural diff built on Tree-sitter parsers

            🎯 Perfect for: writing a grammar for a new language, keeping an existing grammar's parser and corpus tests current, testing highlight and injection queries for Neovim, Helix or Zed, CI jobs that check a committed parser is up to date, and Debian 12 or Ubuntu 22.04 machines where upstream's own binary will not start.
        

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Install Latest tree-sitter-cli on Debian