Command line

Read by niminal-live. This page is the sequencer client: it reads tempo, clips, scenes and patterns, turns them into notes with times, and sends those to the server, which makes the sound. It also holds the language server the editor extension uses.

Install it from a clone of the repo (needs a Rust toolchain), next to the server:

cargo install --path crates/niminal-cli   # niminal, the server
cargo install --path sequencer/live-cli    # niminal-live

niminal-live <command> --help lists every flag.

Subcommands

Command	What it does
niminal-live render	Render a .nml file (or an arrangement in it) to WAV; optional --score, --from / --to, --stems (one file per node and bus into the --out folder).
niminal-live gallery SAMPLE	Make many versions of a sample, each a short piece of code, and render them to listen to. See Gallery.
niminal-live live [FILE]	Live sequencer client: clips, scenes, quantized edits, file watch, --midi, --osc-port, --clock-in, --clock-out. Connects to --engine-port (7401); the live-control API on --port (7400).
niminal-live repl	REPL connected to a running server (--port, --quantize, --token).
niminal-live send	One-shot eval to the server (code argument, --file, or stdin).
niminal-live explain FILE	Compile a .nml file and list, for each instrument and node chain, the ops that run every sample and the ones that run once per block (see control scopes).
niminal-live lsp	Language server on stdio — see Editor and LSP.

Render

--out is required. Live pieces without a fixed end use --bars or --seconds. Offline renders can use --no-limiter. niminal-live render file.nml --score events.nms --out out.wav plays a score against the file’s instruments, and --input take.wav plays a WAV file into the file’s fx, for as long as the file lasts unless you say otherwise with --bars or --seconds.

Pass the same --block-size and --control-step the server runs with when you want a render to match what you hear — both are fixed at server start-up and not recorded in session logs.

Gallery

niminal-live gallery break.wav --out gallery/ --families players,manglers --amount enough

Writes a .nml and a rendered .wav for each version into --out, and a gallery.json that lists them with the settings each was made from. Every version is ordinary code you can open, edit and keep: a recipe with its settings picked at random inside their ranges.

Flag	Meaning
--families	Only these kinds of recipe, comma separated: players (grains and clouds of the sample), manglers (fragments, reversed debris, held spectra), glitch (stutters, rewinds, tape stops, shuffles and crushes of the sample, in time with the tempo), synthesis (the sample played as a waveform), modifiers (pitch shifts and filter sweeps) and replicators (echo trains). All of them without it.
--amount	few (1 version of each recipe), enough (3, the default) or lots (6).
--seed	The same seed makes the same versions. Change it for a new set.

A version that fails to render is reported and skipped; the rest carry on. The recipes are the files in sequencer/live-cli/gallery/: a comment header gives the family and each setting’s range (// density: 8..120 log, with int for whole numbers), and {density}, {seed} and {sample} are filled in.

Drums

niminal-live drums prints a drum grid { ... } made from a theme, as code to paste into a piece and edit. The same choices always make the same grid.

niminal-live drums --theme house --density 0.8 --chaos 0.3 --seed 4 --drum hat=0.6 --name beat

• --theme: techno, house, two_step, halftime, breaks, boom_bap, trap or dnb.
• --density: how busy it is, 0 to 1. Thinning takes the ghost notes out first and the anchors of the groove last.
• --chaos: how far it wanders from the theme, 0 to 1. With 0 the seed makes no difference.
• --drum hat=0.6: make one drum sparser (below 1) or busier (above 1) than the rest. Repeat it for more drums.
• --seed: another number makes another wander.
• --name beat: writes beat = grid { ... }.

The rows are named kick, snare or clap, hat, open and perc, depending on the theme. Map them to instruments in a kit, as examples/generated_drums.nml does.

Live, send and the REPL

niminal-live live [FILE] loads a project and reloads it on save. Add --midi and/or --osc-port to play from a keyboard or another program; see examples/midi_osc.nml. --clock-in NAME follows another device’s MIDI clock and --clock-out NAME sends one; see Live coding.

--quantize accepts values like now, next bar, next 4bars (same as in source @ next 4bars), and works with niminal-live send and in the REPL. In the REPL you can also set or clear the default with :quantize WHEN or :quantize off, and leave with :quit.

Server flags

Channels, devices, logging, session logs and the rest belong to the server: see niminal’s command line.