Task - Simple "Make" alternative
Task is a simple tool that allows you to easily run development and build
tasks. Task is written in Go, but can be used to develop any language.
It aims to be simpler and easier to use then GNU Make.
Installation
If you have a Go environment setup, you can simply run:
go get -u -v github.com/go-task/task/cmd/task
Or you can download from the releases page and add to your PATH
.
Usage
Create a file called Taskfile.yml
in the root of the project.
(Taskfile.toml
and Taskfile.json
are also supported, but YAML is used in
the documentation). The cmds
attribute should contains the commands of a
task:
build:
cmds:
- go build -v -i main.go
assets:
cmds:
- gulp
Running the tasks is as simple as running:
task assets build
If Bash is available (Linux and Windows while on Git Bash), the commands will
run in Bash, otherwise will fallback to cmd
(on Windows).
Environment
You can specify environment variables that are added when running a command:
build:
cmds:
- echo $hallo
env:
hallo: welt
OS specific task support
If you add a Taskfile_{{GOOS}}
you can override or amend your taskfile based on the op;erating system.
Example:
Taskfile.yml:
build:
cmds:
- echo "default"
Taskfile_linux.yml:
build:
cmds:
- echo "linux"
Will print out linux
and not default
Running task in another dir
By default, tasks will be executed in the directory where the Taskfile is
located. But you can easily make the task run in another folder informing
dir
:
js:
dir: www/public/js
cmds:
- gulp
Task dependencies
You may have tasks that depends on others. Just pointing them on deps
will
make them run automatically before running the parent task:
build:
deps: [assets]
cmds:
- go build -v -i main.go
assets:
cmds:
- gulp
In the above example, assets
will always run right before build
if you run
task build
.
A task can have only dependencies and no commands to group tasks together:
assets:
deps: [js, css]
js:
cmds:
- npm run buildjs
css:
cmds:
- npm run buildcss
Each task can only be run once. If it is included from another dependend task causing
a cyclomatic dependency, execution will be stopped.
task1:
deps: [task2]
task2:
deps: [task1]
Will stop at the moment the dependencies of task2
are executed.
Prevent task from running when not necessary
If a task generates something, you can inform Task the source and generated
files, so Task will prevent to run them if not necessary.
build:
deps: [js, css]
cmds:
- go build -v -i main.go
js:
cmds:
- npm run buildjs
sources:
- js/src/**/*.js
generates:
- public/bundle.js
css:
cmds:
- npm run buildcss
sources:
- css/src/*.css
generates:
- public/bundle.css
sources
and generates
should be file patterns. When both are given, Task
will compare the modification date/time of the files to determine if it's
necessary to run the task. If not, it will just print
Task "js" is up to date
.
You can use --force
or -f
if you want to force a task to run even when
up-to-date.
Variables
build:
deps: [setvar]
cmds:
- echo "{{.PREFIX}} {{.THEVAR}}"
vars:
PREFIX: "Path:"
setvar:
cmds:
- echo "{{.PATH}}"
set: THEVAR
The above sample saves the path into a new variable which is then again echoed.
You can use environment variables, task level variables and a file called
Taskvars.yml
(or Taskvars.toml
or Taskvars.json
) as source of variables.
They are evaluated in the following order:
Task local variables are overwritten by variables found in Taskvars
file.
Variables found in Taskvars
file are overwritten with variables from the
environment. The output of the last command is stored in the environment. So
you can do something like this:
build:
deps: [setvar]
cmds:
- echo "{{.PREFIX}} '{{.THEVAR}}'"
vars:
PREFIX: "Result: "
setvar:
cmds:
- echo -n "a"
- echo -n "{{.THEVAR}}b"
- echo -n "{{.THEVAR}}c"
set: THEVAR
The result of a run of build would be:
a
ab
abc
Result: 'abc'
Dynamic variables
If you prefix a variable with $
, then the variable is considered a dynamic
variable. The value after the $-symbol will be treated as a command and the
output assigned.
build:
cmds:
- go build -ldflags="-X main.Version={{.LAST_GIT_COMMIT}}" main.go
vars:
LAST_GIT_COMMIT: $git log -n 1 --format=%h
Go's template engine
Task parse commands as Go's template engine before executing
them. Variables are acessible through dot syntax (.VARNAME
). The following
functions are available:
OS
: return operating system. Possible values are "windows", "linux",
"darwin" (macOS) and "freebsd".
ARCH
: return the architecture Task was compiled to: "386", "amd64", "arm"
or "s390x".
IsSH
: on unix systems this should always return true
. On Windows, will
return true
if sh
command was found (Git Bash). In this case commands
will run on sh
. Otherwise, this function will return false
meaning
commands will run on cmd
.
Example:
printos:
cmds:
- echo '{{OS}} {{ARCH}}'
- "echo '{{if eq OS \"windows\"}}windows-command{{else}}unix-command{{end}}'"
- echo 'Is SH? {{IsSH}}'
Alternatives
Similar software: