Command overview

Use this topic to choose the right command family. It is not the exact flag reference. For exact syntax, defaults, required flags, and examples, run wavepeek help <command-path...> or wavepeek <command> --help.

Help and documentation

Use help when you want the detailed reference layer directly, especially for nested paths such as wavepeek help docs show.

Use docs when command help is not enough. It is the packaged narrative surface for command guidance, workflows, troubleshooting, topic discovery, and export.

Helper commands

Use schema when a machine client needs the canonical JSON contract for --json outputs, schema --stream for per-record JSONL contracts, or schema --input for structured JSON input documents. It prints the selected schema artifact directly and does not require a waveform file.

Use skill when a coding agent needs the packaged Wavepeek skill Markdown from the installed build.

Waveform inspection commands

Use info first when you need dump metadata before running time-based queries. It reports the dump time unit and normalized start/end bounds that other commands use.

Use scope to explore hierarchy structure. It is the stable way to discover scope paths before narrowing later queries to a smaller part of the design.

Use signal after scope to inspect the signals available in a selected scope. Recursive mode broadens that view into child scopes while preserving deterministic ordering.

Use value for exact point sampling. It is the most direct command when you already know the signal set and want one or more explicit normalized timestamps.

Use change to inspect value transitions across a bounded time range. Trigger selection comes from --on; expression syntax lives in reference/expression-language.

Use property when you want to evaluate a logical expression on event-selected timestamps instead of printing raw signal snapshots. Capture modes control whether you keep every match or only state transitions such as asserts and deasserts.

Use extract commands when you want one row per matching synchronous event with ordered payload values sampled at the pre-edge point. extract ahb tracks manager-facing AHB-Lite or AHB5 address/data pipeline events, including delayed completions and synchronization boundaries. extract apb covers APB3, APB4, and APB5 Setup, waited Access, and completed Access states from Arm IHI 0024E Issue E. extract atb covers AMBA ATB transfer, flush, and synchronization-request events. extract axi covers AXI3, AXI4, AXI4-Lite, AXI5, AXI5-Lite, ACE, ACE-Lite, ACE5, ACE5-Lite, ACE5-LiteDVM, and ACE5-LiteACP ready/valid channel transfers. extract axistream covers one AXI4-Stream or AXI5-Stream interface, including an explicit mode for physically omitted TREADY. extract generic covers custom handshakes, FIFO pushes and pops, and other transfer-like rows.

When choosing between VCD, FST, and FSDB input or diagnosing unexpectedly slow queries, use reference/waveform-performance for format-level performance guidance.

Which document is normative?

Use this overview to choose a command quickly. When exact flags matter, defer to generated help. When behavioral semantics matter, use the reference topics under reference/*. When exact JSON shapes matter, use wavepeek schema for envelope output, wavepeek schema --stream for JSONL stream records, and wavepeek schema --input for structured input documents.