Westminster Standards CLI

A small command line tool for reading, searching, and quizzing yourself on the Westminster Standards.

The CLI ships with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church constitutional text for:

• Westminster Confession of Faith (wcf)
• Westminster Larger Catechism (wlc)
• Westminster Shorter Catechism (wsc)

The data is derived from the OPC pages linked from https://opc.org/confessions.html. The constitutional text is the default; the 2025 Modern English Study Version (MESV) is also bundled and available via -m/--mesv and --compare. Note the OPC preface: the MESV is a study aid and carries no constitutional authority.

The bundled corpus lives in src/westminster_cli/data/standards.json. The importer in scripts/build_opc_corpus.py can rebuild it from downloaded OPC HTML.

Installation

You need Python 3.9+ and uv installed.

Install uv if you do not already have it:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Install the CLI from PyPI:

uv tool install westminster-standards-cli

Then run:

ws
ws stats
ws wcf 1
ws wsc 1 --question

uv installs the CLI and its Python dependencies, including prompt_toolkit, from the package metadata.

Development Install

To try the CLI from a fresh clone without installing it globally:

git clone https://github.com/normanormata/westminster_cli.git
cd westminster_cli
uv run ws

You can also run one-shot commands from the clone:

uv run ws stats
uv run ws wcf 1
uv run ws wsc 1 --question

If you cloned the repo and want your local edits to take effect while you work on the CLI, install it in editable mode from inside the project folder:

uv tool install -e .

Run locally

uv run ws
uv run ws --help

Running ws with no arguments opens an interactive terminal session. Inside it, type / to see live slash-command suggestions, use arrow keys to select a command template, run commands without the ws prefix, and type exit to quit. Plain commands such as wcf, search, and stats also complete while typing. Completion is context-aware: after a document id (wsc ) it suggests references, and after a reference it suggests --question/--answer. Command history persists across sessions, and a bottom toolbar shows quick hints and corpus counts.

Use quiz for an interactive flashcard session: it shows a question, waits for Enter to reveal the answer, records whether you got it, and prints a running score. Type s to skip a card or q to stop early. Pass a document id and question count to shape the session, e.g. ws quiz wlc 20 (defaults: wsc, 10 questions).

search matches entries containing all of the given terms; pass -r/--regex to treat the query as a single case-insensitive regular expression instead (ws search --regex "bapti[sz]ed?").

Pass -p/--proofs to any reading command (ws wsc 1 -p, ws wcf 1.1 -p, ws wcf 1 -p) to show the OPC scripture proof texts beneath the text, lettered to match the printed edition. It combines with -q/-a, and /p wsc 1 works as a slash alias.

Pass -m/--mesv to read the 2025 Modern English Study Version instead (ws wsc 1 -m, ws wcf 1.1 -m, /m wsc 1), or --compare to see the constitutional and MESV texts together. -m combines with -q/-a (modern question or answer only) and -p.

UV creates and syncs the project environment automatically from pyproject.toml and uv.lock.

The repo also includes direct wrappers if you want to run without syncing a UV environment:

./ws --help
./westminster --help
./wsc show wsc 1

Commands

uv run ws list
uv run ws list wsc
uv run ws wsc 1
uv run ws wsc 1 --question
uv run ws wsc 1 --answer
uv run ws wsc 1 --proofs
uv run ws wsc 1 --mesv
uv run ws wsc 1 --compare
uv run ws wcf 1
uv run ws wcf 1.1
uv run ws wcf 1.1 -p
uv run ws wcf 1.1 -m
uv run ws search "chief end"
uv run ws search --regex "bapti[sz]ed?"
uv run ws quiz
uv run ws quiz wlc 20
uv run ws stats
uv run ws sources
uv run ws clear

Slash command discovery and aliases:

uv run ws /
uv run ws /wcf 1
uv run ws /wsc 1 --question
uv run ws /q wsc 1
uv run ws /a wlc 1
uv run ws /p wsc 1
uv run ws /m wsc 1
uv run ws /stats
uv run ws /clear

The explicit show command still works:

uv run ws show wcf 1
uv run ws show wsc 1

The full command name still works:

uv run westminster stats

After installing the tool, both names are available:

ws stats
westminster stats
wsc show wsc 1

Test

uv run python -m unittest discover -s tests

Rebuild the OPC corpus

curl -L https://opc.org/wcf.html -o /tmp/opc-wcf.html
curl -L https://opc.org/lc.html -o /tmp/opc-lc.html
curl -L https://opc.org/sc.html -o /tmp/opc-sc.html
python3 scripts/build_opc_corpus.py /tmp/opc-wcf.html /tmp/opc-lc.html /tmp/opc-sc.html

Rebuild the scripture proofs

The proof references come from the OPC "with Scripture proofs" PDFs linked from https://opc.org/confessions.html. After rebuilding the corpus, re-merge them:

curl -L https://opc.org/documents/CFLayout.pdf -o /tmp/CFLayout.pdf
curl -L https://opc.org/documents/LCLayout.pdf -o /tmp/LCLayout.pdf
curl -L https://opc.org/documents/SCLayout.pdf -o /tmp/SCLayout.pdf
uv run python scripts/add_scripture_proofs.py /tmp/CFLayout.pdf /tmp/LCLayout.pdf /tmp/SCLayout.pdf

The script validates that every superscript proof marker in the body text pairs with a lettered footnote and reports per-document counts before writing.

Rebuild the MESV text

The 2025 Modern English Study Version comes from the OPC PDFs linked from https://opc.org/confessions.html:

curl -L https://opc.org/documents/2025_Modern_English_Study_Version_of_The_Confession_of_Faith.pdf -o /tmp/mesv_cf.pdf
curl -L https://opc.org/documents/2025_Modern_English_Study_Version_of_The_Larger_Catechism.pdf -o /tmp/mesv_lc.pdf
curl -L https://opc.org/documents/2025_Modern_English_Study_Version_of_The_Shorter_Catechism.pdf -o /tmp/mesv_sc.pdf
uv run python scripts/add_mesv.py /tmp/mesv_cf.pdf /tmp/mesv_lc.pdf /tmp/mesv_sc.pdf

The script validates that the MESV refs exactly match the constitutional corpus (33 chapters / 171 sections, 196 and 107 questions) before writing.

Data format

Each document has an id, title, short name, and entries:

{
  "id": "wsc",
  "title": "Westminster Shorter Catechism",
  "short_title": "Shorter Catechism",
  "source": "Orthodox Presbyterian Church constitutional text",
  "source_url": "https://opc.org/sc.html",
  "entries": [
    {
      "ref": "1",
      "kind": "qa",
      "question": "What is the chief end of man?",
      "answer": "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever."
    }
  ]
}

For confession paragraphs, use kind: "section" with heading and text.

Entries may also carry an optional proofs list of scripture proof references, each with the OPC footnote letter and its references:

"proofs": [
  { "letter": "a", "references": ["Ps. 86:9", "Rom. 11:36"] }
]

Entries may also carry the 2025 MESV text in parallel fields: question_mesv/answer_mesv for catechism entries, and text_mesv/heading_mesv for confession sections.