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Installation

Vexy JSON ships as several packages built from one Cargo workspace. Install the one that matches the language you work in. All packages share one version number.

Rust library

Prerequisites: a Rust toolchain with Cargo.

  1. Add the crate to your project:

    cargo add vexy-json

    Or add it to Cargo.toml by hand:

    [dependencies]
vexy-json = "1"

  2. Build the project with cargo build.

The vexy-json crate re-exports the parser from vexy-json-core. Its default serde feature also pulls in vexy-json-serde. To build without it, turn off default features:

[dependencies]
vexy-json = { version = "1", default-features = false }

The workspace publishes these crates to crates.io:

Crate Contents
vexy-json High-level crate that re-exports the parser API
vexy-json-core Lexer, parser, repair, streaming and transform modules
vexy-json-cli The vexy-json command-line program
vexy-json-serde SerdeValue, a Serde wrapper around Value
vexy-json-wasm WebAssembly bindings (built with wasm-pack)
vexy-json-c-api C ABI, built as a static and a dynamic library

Command-line tool

With Cargo

  1. Install the CLI crate:

    cargo install vexy-json-cli

  2. Check the installation:

    vexy-json --version

    The command prints the program name and version, for example vexy_json 1.5.13.

From a GitHub release

Each tagged release on the releases page carries prebuilt binaries:

  • vexy-json-<version>-linux-x86_64.tar.gz and …-linux-aarch64.tar.gz
  • vexy-json-<version>-macos-x86_64.tar.gz, …-macos-aarch64.tar.gz, a universal …-macos.zip and a …-macos.dmg installer
  • vexy-json-<version>-windows-x86_64.zip

Unpack the archive and put the vexy-json binary (vexy-json.exe on Windows) on your PATH.

From a source checkout

install.sh in the repository root builds the CLI and installs it under ~/.local (the binary goes to ~/.local/bin). It also builds and installs the Python extension; see below.

./install.sh                 # CLI under ~/.local
./install.sh --prefix /opt   # CLI under /opt instead

The prefix can also come from the VEXY_JSON_PREFIX environment variable.

Python package

Prerequisites: Python 3.8 or later. The PyPI distribution is named vexy-json; the import name is vexy_json.

uv add vexy-json          # in a uv-managed project
uv pip install vexy-json  # into the active environment
pip install vexy-json     # with pip

Check the installation:

python -c "import vexy_json; print(vexy_json.__version__)"

The package contains a compiled extension module (vexy_json._vexy_json) built from crates/python with maturin and PyO3. If no prebuilt wheel exists for your platform, the installer builds it from the source distribution, which needs a Rust toolchain.

./install.sh in a source checkout builds a wheel for the system Python selected by uv python find --system --no-managed-python and installs it with uv pip install --system.

WebAssembly module

The WebAssembly bindings are not published to npm. Use one of these sources:

  • Release archive. Each GitHub release has a vexy-json-wasm-<version>.tar.gz asset with the wasm-pack output (pkg/).
  • Hosted copy. The documentation site serves the current build at https://vexy.dev/vexy-json/pkg/vexy_json_wasm.js. The demo loads it from there.

  • Build it yourself. Prerequisites: Rust with the wasm32-unknown-unknown target and wasm-pack.

    1. Run the build script from the repository root:

      ./scripts/build-wasm.sh release

    2. Collect the output from src_docs/md/pkg/: vexy_json_wasm.js, vexy_json_wasm_bg.wasm, the TypeScript declarations and package.json.

The build uses wasm-pack build --target web, so the module is an ES module with a default init export. See JavaScript and WebAssembly.

C and C++ library

Prerequisites: a Rust toolchain and a C or C++ compiler.

  1. Build the library:

    cargo build --release -p vexy-json-c-api

    Cargo writes libvexy_json_c_api.a and the platform's dynamic library (libvexy_json_c_api.dylib, .so or .dll) to target/release/.

  2. Add crates/c-api/include to your include path. It holds vexy_json.h, which C and C++ code can include.

  3. Link against the library. See C and C++ for an example.