AI-Friendly CLI Mode

The default text output of babel.exe is unchanged and remains fully backward compatible: existing CI scripts and customer integrations require no changes.

The AI-friendly mode is enabled by three new global flags:

• --format=text|json|ndjson — selects the output channel format
• --quiet (alias -q) — suppresses the logo banner and fails fast on interactive prompts
• --strict-exit — opts into semantic exit codes

When --format=json or --format=ndjson is selected, stdout carries the structured stream and human-readable diagnostics are routed to stderr so the two channels never interleave.

Flags

—format <format>

Selects the output format used on stdout. Allowed values:

Examples:

babel myapp.exe --format=json > result.json
babel myapp.exe --format=ndjson | jq -c 'select(.level=="error")'

—quiet (-q)

Suppresses the copyright/logo banner and changes the behavior of interactive password prompts: instead of blocking on Console.In, Babel fails fast with an explicit error. This makes --quiet safe for unattended invocations from CI runners, container build steps and AI agents.

babel myapp.exe --quiet --keyfile mykey.pfx --keypwd env:KEY_PWD

--quiet is independent from --format: it can be combined with the legacy text output to keep human-readable logs without the banner.

—strict-exit

Opts the process into semantic exit codes. Without this flag, Babel preserves the legacy contract where 0 means success and 1 means any failure.

The classification is also surfaced as exitReason in the JSON/NDJSON result record (see Result envelope), even when --strict-exit is not active, so consumers can distinguish failure categories independently from the numeric exit code.

babel myapp.exe --strict-exit --format=json
echo "exit=$?"

Schema: babel.cli.v1

All structured payloads conform to the versioned babel.cli.v1 schema. Within a major schema version, additive changes (new fields, new event codes, new exit reasons) are allowed; breaking changes will bump the schema name.

Event record

Every diagnostic emitted while a run is in progress is mapped to an event:

{
  "ts":      "2026-05-08T14:32:11.482Z",
  "level":   "info",
  "code":    "BAB1234",
  "message": "Renaming phase, elapsed time 00.082s",
  "data":    { "phase": "renaming", "elapsedMs": 82 }
}

Result envelope

—format=json

A single JSON object is written to stdout when the run terminates. It contains the run-level summary and all events buffered during the run:

{
  "exitCode":   0,
  "exitReason": "success",
  "elapsedMs":  4218,
  "warnings":   1,
  "errors":     0,
  "events": [
    { "ts": "2026-05-08T14:32:09.500Z", "level": "info",    "code": null,      "message": "Babel Obfuscator 11.7.0.0", "data": null },
    { "ts": "2026-05-08T14:32:11.482Z", "level": "info",    "code": "BAB1234", "message": "Renaming phase ...",       "data": { "phase": "renaming" } },
    { "ts": "2026-05-08T14:32:13.012Z", "level": "warning", "code": "W00013",  "message": "Could not resolve ...",     "data": null }
  ]
}

—format=ndjson

Each event is flushed as soon as it is produced, on its own line. After the last event, a final result line is appended (without an events array, since events have already been streamed):

{"ts":"2026-05-08T14:32:09.500Z","level":"info","code":null,"message":"Babel Obfuscator 11.7.0.0","data":null}
{"ts":"2026-05-08T14:32:11.482Z","level":"info","code":"BAB1234","message":"Renaming phase ...","data":{"phase":"renaming"}}
{"ts":"2026-05-08T14:32:13.012Z","level":"warning","code":"W00013","message":"Could not resolve ...","data":null}
{"exitCode":0,"exitReason":"success","elapsedMs":4218,"warnings":1,"errors":0}

Machine-readable —help

babel --help --format=json emits a complete description of every public option, suitable for tooling that needs to introspect the CLI surface (shell completions, AI agents, doc generators):

{
  "version": "11.7.0.0",
  "usage":   "babel.exe <primary assembly source> [<other assemblies>...] [options]",
  "options": [
    {
      "name":        "controlflow",
      "aliases":     ["nocontrolflow", "no-controlflow", "control-flow", "no-control-flow", "i"],
      "description": "Enable ([no]disable) MSIL control flow obfuscation",
      "args":        null,
      "argRequired": false,
      "argOptional": false,
      "negatable":   true,
      "incremental": false,
      "container":   "scalar",
      "type":        "boolean",
      "group":       "- Code Obfuscation -",
      "details":     "Use this option to alter the method control flow ..."
    }
  ]
}

A scoped form is also supported. babel --help controlflow --format=json emits the same envelope but containing only the controlflow option (and its details resolved from the option resource bundle).

Hidden/internal options are never returned.

Machine-readable —version

babel --version --format=json emits runtime and platform information:

{
  "product":     "Babel Obfuscator",
  "version":     "11.7.0.0",
  "fileVersion": "11.7.0.0",
  "runtime":     ".NET 8.0.11",
  "platform":    "win-x64"
}

The platform field uses the .NET RuntimeIdentifier (RID) when running on .NET 5+, and a synthetic <os>-<arch> string on legacy targets (net472-x64, unix-x64, …).

Backward compatibility

• The default value of --format is text; the legacy textual output, exit codes and behavior are unchanged when no new flag is specified.
• Without --strict-exit, the process keeps returning 0 on success and 1 on any failure — existing CI gates that branch on $? keep working.
• --quiet is independent and can be opted into without enabling structured output.