26 Unix tools. One binary. Zero dependencies. · the missing coreutils for AI pipelines · vrk mcp - expose all 26 tools to any AI agent · brew install vrk - ready in 5 seconds · 26 Unix tools. One binary. Zero dependencies. · the missing coreutils for AI pipelines · vrk mcp - expose all 26 tools to any AI agent · brew install vrk - ready in 5 seconds

vrk jwt

About

Decodes JWT tokens and shows you what is inside - without sending them to a third-party website. You can extract a single claim, check whether the token is expired, or validate all time-based claims at once.

The problem

You have a JWT from an API response and need to check what is in it. You paste it into jwt.io (leaking the token to a third party) or write a Python one-liner that breaks on padding. You just want to see the claims.

Before and after

Before

python3 -c "
import base64, json, sys
token = sys.argv[1].split('.')[1]
token += '=' * (-len(token) % 4)
print(json.dumps(json.loads(base64.urlsafe_b64decode(token)), indent=2))
" eyJhbGciOi...

After

vrk jwt eyJhbGciOi...

Example

vrk jwt --claim sub eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9...

Exit codes

CodeMeaning
0Success or token is valid
1Token expired/invalid or runtime error
2Usage error - bad format, too many args

Flags

FlagShortTypeDescription
--json-jboolEmit decoded token as JSON
--claim-cstringPrint value of a single claim
--expired-eboolExit 1 if the token is expired
--validboolExit 1 if expired, not-yet-valid, or issued in the future
--quiet-qboolSuppress stderr output