Windk is a Windows Development kit. A lightweight, memory-efficient, and modular CLI runner architecture built for Windows Batch (cmd.exe).
Traditional Batch-based orchestration tools typically pre-parse or bulk-load configuration files (.cfg/.ini) into environment memory upon startup. In complex enterprise CLI environments, this quickly exceeds the native 32 KB Command Shell Environment Block limit, causing buffer overflows, environment pollution, and unstable parameter evaluation.
Windk resolves these platform constraints by strictly decoupling execution orchestration into three modular components, resolving configuration values on demand rather than loading them all into memory up front.
Windk is composed of three decoupled components:
A lightweight parameter categorization and dispatch gateway. It maintains zero internal state tables and forwards parameter scope directly to target subcommands.
Encapsulates configuration I/O into isolated, stateless execution contexts. It performs:
- Line-buffered JIT key resolution (
GET) - Non-destructive atomic mutations (
SET)
Independent executables hosted under ..\lib\ that own their respective domain business logic and local argument parsing.
[ CLI Execution Context: windk <flags|command> [args...] ]
│
▼
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ STEP 1: Main Script Boundary Initialization │
│ - Validate config_manager.bat & windk.cfg paths │
│ - Initialize target dispatch tracking variables │
└───────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┘
│
▼
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ STEP 2: Argument Tokenization & Categorization Loop │
│ - Tokenize input stream via SHIFT loop │
│ - Parse token prefixes (-, /, or positional literal) │
└─────────────┬────────────────────────────┬─────────────┘
│ │
(Flag Token) (Positional Command)
│ │
▼ ▼
┌────────────────────────────┐ ┌────────────────────────────┐
│ STEP 2A: Flag Dispatch │ │ STEP 2B: Subcommand Lookup │
│ - Strip prefix delimiters │ │ - Issue JIT GET to │
│ - Issue JIT GET to │ │ config_manager.bat │
│ config_manager.bat │ │ - Section: [command] │
│ - Section: [flag] │ │ - Return target path or │
│ - Execute flag target or │ │ append to argument │
│ collect passthrough flag │ │ forwarding array │
└─────────────┬──────────────┘ └───────────┬────────────────┘
│ │
└─────────────┬──────────────┘
│
▼
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ STEP 3: Config Manager JIT Processing │
│ - Line-by-line stream processing via FOR /F │
│ - Recursive @: alias pointer resolution (Max depth: 3) │
│ - Relative-to-absolute path expansion (.\ or ..\) │
│ - Isolated cross-scope handshake via SETVAR │
└───────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┘
│
▼
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ STEP 4: Target Verification & Subcommand Execution │
│ - Assert TARGET_CMD presence on disk │
│ - Pass-through STATELESS_FLAGS and CMD_ARGS │
│ - Delegate execution via CALL and pass child exit code │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
- No bulk config loading — configuration values are resolved just-in-time, per key, rather than loaded wholesale into the environment block.
- Statelessness by default — the router and config engine hold no persistent internal state, minimizing environment pollution and making behavior predictable across invocations.
- Separation of concerns — routing, configuration I/O, and business logic are owned by distinct components, each independently testable and replaceable.
- Isolation of mutation — configuration writes (
SET) are atomic and non-destructive, reducing the risk of partial or corrupted config state.
exe/
├── windk.bat # Stateless router / dispatch gateway
├── config/
│ └── windk.cfg # Configuration file (sections per flag/command)
├── help/
│ └── windk-help.bat # Main runner help script
├── util/
│ └── config_manager.bat # Atomic JIT config I/O engine (GET / SET)
└── lib/
└── ... # Autonomous subcommand executables
windk.battokenizes the incoming CLI arguments and categorizes each token as either a flag (-//prefixed) or a positional command.- For flags, the router issues a JIT
GETagainstconfig_manager.batunder the[flag]section to resolve the flag's target or behavior. - For positional commands, the router issues a JIT
GETunder the[command]section to resolve the subcommand's target path, or appends the token to the argument-forwarding array. config_manager.batresolves the requested key via line-by-line stream processing, recursively resolving@:alias pointers (up to a depth of 3) and expanding relative paths (.\or..\) to absolute paths.- Once resolved,
windk.batverifies the target subcommand exists on disk, then delegates execution viaCALL, forwarding any stateless flags and command arguments, and propagates the child process's exit code back to the caller.
- Windows Command Shell (
cmd.exe)
windk <flags|command> [args...]MIT License
Copyright (c) Michael Arakilian and affiliates.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
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