Introduction

Tabrixel (tbxl) is a command-line tool for working with Google Sheets as record tables. It lets you inspect a document's structure, read rows as records, and add, update, upsert, or delete rows by column-based conditions — without opening a browser.

The records model

tbxl treats a single sheet as a table of records:

• Row 1 is the header. Each cell in the first row is a column name.
• Every row below the header is a record, keyed by those column names.

So a sheet like this:

Id	Name	IsActive
1	Max	1
2	Sam	0

is read as two records: {Id: "1", Name: "Max", IsActive: "1"} and {Id: "2", Name: "Sam", IsActive: "0"}.

Everything is a string

Cells have no types. IsActive=0 writes the text "0", and rows come back as "0" / "1". There is no quoting of numbers and no booleans-as-bools — values are exact strings in and exact strings out.

Core principle: learn the names first

Column names, sheet names, and the values you match on are exact, case-sensitive strings with no type coercion. Sheet1 is not sheet1, and Name is not name.

Rather than guessing, learn the real names before you act:

tbxl describe   # every sheet, its columns, and record counts
tbxl columns    # column names of the target sheet

Then run rows list to read, or a mutation command to change data. A miss on a column name returns a column_not_found error — often with a did_you_mean suggestion.

What's next

• Installation — install the global tool.
• Getting Started — set up a service account and verify access.
• Configuration — persist defaults so you don't repeat flags.
• Commands — the full command reference.