Command line

arbol [OPTIONS] [PATH]

PATH is a directory to walk or a JSON file to read, and defaults to the current directory. Arbol works out which it is; there is no mode flag.

Option	Description
-a, --all	Show hidden entries: dot names, and dunder folders
-L, --level	Maximum display depth, counting levels below the root
-I, --ignore	Wildcard pattern to skip, at any depth. Repeatable
-o, --output	Save the intermediate JSON here instead of a temporary file
-V, --version	Show the version and exit

Hidden entries are skipped by default: anything starting with a dot, plus dunder folders like __pycache__. So the common case needs no flags:

arbol .

-a turns that off and shows everything, matching tree -a:

arbol . -a

-I handles whatever the default does not cover. See Ignore patterns for the full syntax.

Depth

-L counts levels below the root, so -L 1 is the root's own entries. A directory cut off at the limit simply stops, with no marker distinguishing it from a file — the same thing tree -L does. -L 0 is an error, again as in tree.

Saving and drawing JSON

-o writes the walked structure to a file instead of a temporary one:

arbol . -o tree.json

Point arbol at that file to draw it again, edits and all:

arbol tree.json

See use case 2 for the edit-and-redraw workflow, and use case 3 for JSON that never came from a filesystem.

The format

ROOT names the root node and is not drawn as a branch. Everything else follows three rules: an object contributes one branch per key, an array contributes one child per item, and anything else becomes a leaf.

For a walked directory that means a directory is a list of entries, a file is a string in that list, and a subdirectory is a single-key dict, {"name": [...]}.

Files have two representations

At the top level every entry is a dict key, so a top-level file is written "README.md": [] — an empty list renders as a leaf. A nested file is a plain string inside its parent's list. Worth knowing before you edit one by hand.

Two things about saving

• The file holds what was walked. Hidden entries are absent unless you save with -a.
• ROOT records the real directory name, not the path you typed. arbol . -o tree.json displays . but writes "ROOT": "myproject".

Walk options do not apply to JSON input

-L, -I, -a and -o describe a walk, and reading a JSON file involves no walk. Passing them with a JSON file is an error rather than a silent no-op, which would be a trap.

For JSON input the root is labelled by the document's own ROOT, not by the file path.