The honzo CLI provides commands for creating, inspecting, converting, and managing Honzo files.

Global usage

honzo-cli <command> [options]
Flag Description
--help Show help
--version Show version

Commands

honzo-cli make

Create a Honzo file from markdown source files.

honzo-cli make <output.hzo> \
  --title "Book Title" \
  --author "Author Name" \
  --language "en" \
  --chapters chapter1.md chapter2.md chapter3.md
Option Description
--title <text> Book title
--author <text> Book author
--language <code> Language (BCP 47, default: en)
--chapters <files...> Markdown files (each becomes a chapter)
--cover <image> Cover image file
--layout <mode> reflowable, fixed, scroll (default: reflowable)
--compress <algo> none, lz4 (default: lz4)
--output, -o <file> Output file (default: first positional arg)
honzo-cli info

Display metadata and structure of a Honzo file.

honzo-cli info <file.hzo>

Example output:

Honzo File: book.hzo
  Format version: 1
  Chunk count:    6
  Layout mode:    reflowable

Metadata:
  Title:    The Example Book
  Creator:  Author Name
  Language: en

Chunks:
  [0] CHAP  size=4,198  (lz4) - markdown
  [1] IMG_  size=24,576
  [2] CHAP  size=3,892  (lz4) - markdown
  [3] CSS_  size=1,024
  [4] CHAP  size=5,103  (lz4) - markdown
  [5] META  size=256
Option Description
--verbose, -v Show detailed TOC fields
--json Output as JSON
honzo-cli inspect

Low-level dump of the file structure.

honzo-cli inspect <file.hzo>

Shows HEAD fields, TOC entries (hex + decoded), and section offsets.

honzo-cli convert

Convert an existing ebook format to Honzo.

honzo-cli convert <input> <output.hzo>

Supported input formats:

Extension Format
.epub EPUB 2/3
.mobi MOBI (Amazon Kindle)
.pdf PDF
.md/.markdown Markdown file or directory project

The format is chosen by the input extension, case-insensitively. Markdown accepts either a single .md file or a directory containing a honzo.json project config plus one or more .md files.

Option Description
--title <text> Override title
--author <text> Override author
--language <code> Override language
honzo-cli validate

Validate a Honzo file’s structure and integrity.

honzo-cli validate <file.hzo>

Checks:

  • Magic bytes and format version
  • Section offset consistency
  • TOC entry integrity
  • Chunk data reachability
  • Compression round-trip

Returns exit code 0 tag “1” color:#ef4444 otherwise.

Exit codes

Code Meaning
0 Success
1 General error
2 Invalid input
3 I/O error
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