# lebab/lebab

Turn your ES5 code into readable ES6. Lebab does the opposite of what Babel does.

Repository: https://github.com/lebab/lebab
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/lebab
Homepage: https://lebab.github.io
Language: JavaScript
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: lebab, javascript, compiler, es2015, es6
Last push: 2026-04-01T08:32:33+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 59/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 75, release rhythm 16, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4214, "days_push": 154, "days_rel": 465, "gap_med": 98.0, "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 5637, forks 151 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:26.682744+00:00)

## What it is
Lebab is a JavaScript transpiler that converts ES5 code into readable ES6/ES7, doing the opposite of Babel. It offers a CLI and library API with individual, well-documented transforms (arrow functions, let/const, classes, for-of, etc.) that can be applied incrementally.

## Use cases
- modernize legacy ES5 JavaScript codebase to ES6
- convert callback functions to arrow functions automatically
- upgrade var declarations to let and const
- transform old for loops to for-of loops
- refactor prototype-based code to ES6 classes
- batch-rewrite a directory of JS files in place

## When to choose
- you have an older ES5 codebase you want to gradually modernize
- you want safe, one-transform-at-a-time codemods with inspectable diffs
- you prefer a CLI tool that can rewrite files in place

## When to avoid
- you need to transpile modern code down to ES5 for old browsers (use Babel)
- you expect fully automatic conversion without reviewing diffs - transforms have documented limitations
- you need transforms for very recent ECMAScript features

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: compiler, cli, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, programming-languages, web-development
- platform: cli, cross-platform
- tags: es6, es2015, transpiler, code-mod, codemod, javascript, refactoring, babel-reverse, nodejs

## Member repositories
- lebab/lebab (main) score 59

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:26.682744+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 2026-08-29T17:55:19.200186+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/lebab/lebab (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:26.682744+00:00, sha bb7f1d9d704b)
  - homepage: https://lebab.github.io (fetched 2026-08-29T08:50:06.418746+00:00, sha 977decbabcea)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/lebab (fetched 2026-08-29T08:50:06.421350+00:00, sha 2a6a8e6ce396)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.