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Automation API

Automate your analysis.

Sigil can be driven from scripts while it runs: open a capture, run a decoder, work the Bits workbench, export the results, render the window to a PNG. The API is a local socket speaking JSON, so any language can use it; the bundled sigil app command wraps it for the shell. Scripted actions are real: they change your session the same way your own clicks would.

Turn it on

The API is off by default. Enable it in Sigil ▸ Settings… ▸ Advanced ▸ Local automation API. The app then listens on a Unix domain socket at: 

~/Library/Application Support/Sigil/sigil.sock

The socket is owned by your user with permissions no one else can read (mode 0600), and nothing is exposed to the network. To drive Sigil from another machine, forward the socket over SSH: 

ssh -L /tmp/sigil.sock:"$HOME/Library/Application Support/Sigil/sigil.sock" mac.local

The protocol

One JSON object per line, UTF-8, in both directions. On connect the server sends a hello: the versioned handshake, which also carries the full command catalog. The schema grows additively within v1. 

{"hello":{"api":"sigil-api:v1","app":"Sigil","version":"0.1.13","build":"…",
          "commands":[{"name":"open","primaryArg":"path","usage":"open <path> — …"}, …]}}

Requests carry a verb name and an args object. An id is optional and echoed back in the reply: 

{"id":1,"command":"open","args":{"path":"/captures/pager1.sigmf"}}
{"id":1,"ok":true,"failures":[]}

Success is an empty failure list. A command succeeds only if its postcondition held (the decode finished, the window appeared, the layout took); otherwise the reply lists what failed. Commands execute strictly in order, one at a time across all connections, and each runs to completion before its reply arrives, so issue them sequentially and trust the answer. v1 is request and response only; there is no event push.

Argument values use the same mini-grammars as the app and the CLI: transform names like whiten:PN9, framing specs like sync or 128:32, layout operations like split:bits:trailing:decoder. Arguments that take a list accept a JSON array or one comma-separated string.

The sigil app client

The bundled CLI is the ready-made client. A bare value goes to the verb's primary argument; everything else is key=value: 

sigil app list                            # every verb, from the hello
sigil app open ~/captures/pager1.sigmf
sigil app select low=929.6e6 high=929.65e6
sigil app run-decoder flex
sigil app select-tab bits
sigil app bits-export /tmp/bits.json
sigil app render-window /tmp/window.png
sigil app workspace "Blind RE" --json     # raw JSON reply

sigil app steps runs a quoted sequence of verbs over one connection and stops at the first failure — the scriptable form of a driven session.

Any other language

The core of a Python client is a dozen lines:

import json, os, socket

path = "/captures/recording.sigmf"  # replace with your recording
sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_UNIX, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
sock.connect(os.path.expanduser("~/Library/Application Support/Sigil/sigil.sock"))
reader = sock.makefile("rb")
hello = json.loads(reader.readline())
sock.sendall(json.dumps({"command": "open", "args": {"path": path}}).encode() + b"\n")
reply = json.loads(reader.readline())

For exploration, nc works straight from the shell: 

echo '{"command":"render-window","args":{"path":"/tmp/w.png"}}' | \
  nc -U ~/Library/Application\ Support/Sigil/sigil.sock

Verbs

sigil app list (or the hello's commands array) is the authoritative, always-current catalog for your installed version. The families: session setup (open, select, save-capture, set-audio-mode, demod-analysis); the display viewport (zoom-selection, box-zoom); audio (play-audio, record-audio); bookmarks; devices (scan-devices reports what was found and which driver libraries loaded); decoders (run-decoder, select-tab, last-result for the machine-readable results); the transport-stream player; the Symbols, Demod, and Bits workbenches (demod-family, demod-burst, the bits-* family through bits-export); walkthroughs; panes, dock tabs, workspaces, and window layout; issue reporting; window renders; and the app lifecycle (close-capture, quit). render-window captures the laid-out window with the Metal-drawn plots rendered in. Only video playback surfaces are not captured.

Getting help

The docs page covers the app and the rest of the CLI, and support has contact details if the API does something these pages don't explain.