gnat/surreal

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

1731 stars · 28 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

Surreal is a tiny, dependency-free JavaScript library that provides ergonomic jQuery-style DOM selection and manipulation on top of vanilla querySelector. It adds Locality of Behavior helpers like me()/any(), call chaining, and built-in animations and timelines in roughly 320 lines with no build step.

Use cases

• replace jQuery with a tiny vanilla JS alternative
• avoid typing document.querySelector and addEventListener repeatedly
• add animations and timelines without extra libraries
• use inline scripts with locality of behavior alongside htmx
• query one element or arrays of elements transparently
• write ergonomic DOM manipulation with no build step

When to choose

• you want jQuery-like ergonomics while staying close to vanilla JS
• you pair htmx or hyperscript and want inline, local scripts
• you need a tiny dependency-free DOM helper with animations

When to avoid

• you need a full reactive frontend framework with state management
• your project already standardizes on jQuery or a large UI framework
• you need extensive plugin ecosystem or legacy browser support

Facets

library · maturity active

ui-components animation developer-tools web-development frontend browser jquery-alternative dom-manipulation locality-of-behavior vanilla-js htmx queryselector dependency-free no-build-step javascript

Member repositories

For agents

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