Getting started

Try without installing

Most ConsultChimps operations also run directly in your browser: no Node.js, no installation, and your files never leave the browser tab. Which surfaces an operation offers is listed on its own guide page and on the online tools index. The command line and the libraries covered below are for repeatable, scripted work across many files at once.

Requirements

Node.js 22.14 or later

Try the CLI

Run a command without keeping a global installation:

npx consultchimps@latest --help

For regular terminal use, install the executable globally:

npm install --global consultchimps
consultchimps --help

For a repository-local CLI version, install it as a development dependency:

npm install --save-dev consultchimps
npx consultchimps --help

Update an installed CLI

npx consultchimps@latest always runs the newest published version, so it needs no updating. A global installation stays on the version you installed until you update it:

consultchimps --version
npm install --global consultchimps@latest

For a repository-local installation, update the development dependency and commit the resulting lockfile change:

npm install --save-dev consultchimps@latest

What shipped in each version is listed on the site's release history, which is regenerated from the package changelogs on every deploy.

Install a library

Install the narrowest package that owns the operation you need:

npm install @consultchimps/xlsx

import { consolidateWorkbooks } from "@consultchimps/xlsx";

const result = await consolidateWorkbooks({
  inputs: ["inputs/january.xlsx", "inputs/february.xlsx"],
  output: "outputs/consolidated.xlsx",
});

The adapter package declares its required ConsultChimps packages, so npm installs core, files, and tabular automatically. Use @consultchimps/pdf for PDF operations or @consultchimps/pptx for PowerPoint template operations.

Install the workspace

git clone https://github.com/consultchimps/consultchimps.git
cd consultchimps
pnpm install
pnpm build

Choose your first operation

Every shipped operation has a complete guide:

The examples below use the globally installed consultchimps executable. Inside a workspace checkout or a repository-local installation, run them through the package manager instead: pnpm consultchimps ... in the workspace, or npx consultchimps ... where the CLI is a development dependency.

For example, split a PDF into individual pages:

consultchimps pdf split report.pdf --output outputs/report-pages

The CLI refuses to replace existing output files unless you explicitly pass --force.

To create a presentation from a designed slide and Excel records (run consultchimps pptx inspect-template <file> first to list the template's placeholders without creating anything):

consultchimps pptx populate \
  --template profile-template.pptx \
  --data profiles.xlsx \
  --sheet Profiles \
  --template-slide 2 \
  --output outputs/company-profiles.pptx

Open the documentation locally

pnpm docs:dev

Then open http://localhost:3000.

Machine-readable output

Add the global --json option before a command when another process will consume the result:

consultchimps --json pdf merge "inputs/**/*.pdf" \
  --output outputs/combined.pdf

The command prints exactly one JSON object on a single line of stdout. Successful operations return {"ok":true,"result":...}, where the result carries the artifacts, warnings, and metrics. Failures return {"ok":false,"error":{"message":...,"code":...}} and keep their nonzero exit code, where code is a stable ConsultChimps error reference. See the CLI reference for the full envelope.

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