March 8, 2026
Schema wars: the sequel
Show HN: Skir – like Protocol Buffer but better
New “Skir” vows to beat the old standard; commenters yell “seen it” and “where’s Go & Rust”
TLDR: Skir is a new tool that writes one data description and generates code and APIs across languages, promising long‑term compatibility. Commenters fire back that it resembles existing tools, bemoan missing Go and Rust support, and worry about its “dense numbers” approach—sparking a fresh round of “do we really need another standard?”
Skir arrives swinging with a “write once, run anywhere” pitch: describe your data and APIs in one file, auto-generate code for many languages, and even do remote calls like Google’s gRPC (a way for apps to talk to each other). It promises “serialize now, deserialize in 100 years,” a VS Code plugin, JSON or binary formats, and a one-command workflow. Sounds slick—until the comments lit up. The loudest theme? Déjà vu. One crowd says Skir looks like a remix of existing standards: OpenRPC gets name-dropped, Buf’s TypeScript plugin gets a pointed nod, and old-schoolers flex Cap’n Proto from the inventor of Protocol Buffers.
Key Points
- •Skir is a declarative schema language that generates idiomatic, type-safe code for multiple languages (e.g., TypeScript, Python, Java, C++).
- •It supports compact “dense JSON” and readable JSON, as well as binary serialization, with built-in guidelines and checks for safe schema evolution.
- •Developers can define RPC methods in Skir and invoke them with end-to-end type safety, similar to gRPC, using client libraries like skir-client.
- •The workflow uses a single YAML configuration, a one-command build, and watch mode for automatic recompilation, aiming for native-feeling generated code.
- •Skir includes a built-in package manager for importing types from GitHub and a Visual Studio Code extension providing validation, completion, and formatting; it’s MIT-licensed by Gepheum.