# sharkdp/hexyl

A command-line hex viewer

Repository: https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/hexyl
Language: Rust
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: command-line, tool, binary-data, hexadecimal, rust
Last push: 2026-04-30T08:24:07+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 69/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 80, release rhythm 38, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2858, "days_push": 125, "days_rel": 200, "gap_med": 235.5, "n_releases_24m": 3}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 10264, forks 268 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:41.373079+00:00)

## What it is
hexyl is a command-line hex viewer for the terminal written in Rust. It uses colored output to distinguish categories of bytes such as NULL bytes, printable ASCII, whitespace, other ASCII, and non-ASCII bytes.

## Use cases
- view binary file contents in the terminal
- inspect hex dumps of files with color-coded byte categories
- examine unknown file formats byte by byte
- replace xxd or hexdump with a friendlier hex viewer
- debug binary data while developing
- quickly identify NULL bytes and non-ASCII content in a file

## When to avoid
- you need to edit binary files, not just view them
- you need a GUI hex editor with advanced features like struct parsing
- you need scripted/parseable hex output rather than human-friendly colored display

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: cli, developer-tools, terminal-ui
- domain: developer-tools, files
- platform: windows, bsd, cli, cross-platform, rust
- tags: hex-viewer, binary-data, hexdump, colored-output, terminal, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- sharkdp/hexyl (main) score 69

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:41.373079+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:19:23.023802+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:41.373079+00:00, sha 4f15f52f842d)
  - registry_crates: https://crates.io/api/v1/crates/hexyl (fetched 2026-08-29T08:18:44.555548+00:00, sha 302bf87f6dcf)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.