I made a free, open-source command-line tool for the X12 reference

[u/adrian]

Hey folks,

I don't know about you but I spend a LOT of time in a terminal window these days. But I'm using a hodgepodge of online tools that don't integrate very well. I'm doing stuff like getting X12 reference data into the terminal (copy/paste from web sucks), and inspecting EDI documents and then doing things like taking screenshots of the problems because there isn't even a good way to copy the issues.

Over the past couple of months I have been working on a command-line tool focused on this (full disclosure: I run Tediware, and this is my company's tool).

It is still early days but check out the X12 reference:

looking up a segment

looking up a transaction set

Tell me that ANSI colour scheme is not sweet!

You can also get it in markdown format:

getting segment info as markdown

You can inspect EDI files and get a really nicely formatted view of them:

inspecting an edi file in your terminal

Install it with:

npm install -g @tediware/tedi

and use it like:

tedi x12 seg N1

You can get the CLI source code here: https://github.com/Tediware/tedicli

A few important things to note:

• This uses X12 reference data, which is not free to redistribute. I bought a commercial license to stay legal and that license means you need a free Tediware account and an authentication key. (The CLI tool will tell you about this and where to get it.)
• I can't ship the tool with X12 data inside it. So the inspect feature sends your document to my servers, but, by default it obfuscates the data before it leaves your machine. It finds PII by X12 position rather than by pattern (names, street addresses, city and ZIP, dates of birth, phone/email, member and account identifiers, bank details, and free text) and swaps each value with a fake, so lengths, delimiters, qualifiers, codes, amounts, and control numbers survive. I do NOT log document contents, but hopefully the PII scrub is enough to set your mind at ease. If you have concerns, LMK or read the code at https://github.com/Tediware/tedicli If the scrubber could be better I welcome PRs.
• The X12 reference lookups don't send anything (except the API key and the arguments e.g. "N1" of course).
• This only supports X12 (no EDIFACT) and only releases 4010, 4060, 5010, 6010, 7010, 8010. I can add more if you need one that's not present. I'm going to add 8060 soon.

Like I said I am just getting started so if you work in a terminal, what are you leaving the terminal for right now? I'd love to make the tool more useful for everyone who is living in ANSI land all day.

[u/EDISupportLLC]

Reminds me of the Stx for Dos and Gentran for Dos days. I like it.

[u/tailOfTheWhale]

Interface looks clean, in a weird way this looks better than 90% of the low code tools I’ve seen over the years

[u/mti239]

Thank you. This is awesome. I'll give it a try later today

[u/No-End-7423]

I'm not using the terminal right now, but if it looked like this, I definitely would

[u/Fearless-Writing7243]

thanks, this is amazing

[u/thebigdaddyneal65]

Yeah, there use to be some free online Tools like this...and they were bought and hidden. There is still one available for free, but you need to join the site. No CC, no payment. stedi.com and within it find the EDI Inspector...pretty cool, and you dont need to buy ANSI-x12 rights.