-`just` is a command runner, not a build system, so it avoids much of [`make`'s complexity and idiosyncrasies](#what-are-the-idiosyncrasies-of-make-that-just-avoids). No need for `.PHONY` recipes!
- Linux, MacOS, and Windows are supported with no additional dependencies. (Although if your system doesn't have an `sh`, you'll need to [choose a different shell](#shell).)
If you need help with `just` please feel free to open an issue or ping me on [Discord](https://discord.gg/ezYScXR). Feature requests and bug reports are always welcome!
Installation
------------
### Prerequisites
`just` should run on any system with a reasonable `sh`, including Linux, MacOS, and the BSDs.
On Windows, `just` works with the `sh` provided by [Git for Windows](https://git-scm.com), [GitHub Desktop](https://desktop.github.com), or [Cygwin](http://www.cygwin.com).
You can also set the shell using command-line arguments. For example, to use PowerShell, launch `just` with `--shell powershell.exe --shell-arg -c`.
(PowerShell is installed by default on Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 S1 and later, and `cmd.exe` is quite fiddly, so PowerShell is recommended for most Windows users.)
<sup><b>You must have the <ahref="https://docs.makedeb.org/prebuilt-mpr/getting-started/#setting-up-the-repository">Prebuilt-MPR set up</a> on your system in order to run this command.</b></sup><br>
You can use the following command on Linux, MacOS, or Windows to download the latest release, just replace `DEST` with the directory where you'd like to put `just`:
`just` is a great, more robust alternative to npm scripts. If you want to include `just` in the dependencies of a Node.js application, `just-install` will install a local, platform-specific binary as part of the `npm install` command. This removes the need for every developer to install `just` independently using one of the processes mentioned above. After installation, the `just` command will work in npm scripts or with npx. It's great for teams who want to make the set up process for their project as easy as possible.
For more information, see the [just-install README file](https://github.com/brombal/just-install#readme).
With the release of version 1.0, `just` features a strong commitment to backwards compatibility and stability.
Future releases will not introduce backwards incompatible changes that make existing `justfile`s stop working, or break working invocations of the command-line interface.
This does not, however, preclude fixing outright bugs, even if doing so might break `justfiles` that rely on their behavior.
There will never be a `just` 2.0. Any desirable backwards-incompatible changes will be opt-in on a per-`justfile` basis, so users may migrate at their leisure.
Features that aren't yet ready for stabilization are gated behind the `--unstable` flag. Features enabled by `--unstable` may change in backwards incompatible ways at any time.
`vim-just` is also available from [vim-polyglot](https://github.com/sheerun/vim-polyglot), a multi-language Vim plugin.
#### `tree-sitter-just`
[tree-sitter-just](https://github.com/IndianBoy42/tree-sitter-just) is an [Nvim Treesitter](https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter) plugin for Neovim.
Vim's built-in makefile syntax highlighting isn't perfect for `justfile`s, but it's better than nothing. You can put the following in `~/.vim/filetype.vim`:
[just-mode](https://github.com/leon-barrett/just-mode.el) provides syntax highlighting and automatic indentation of `justfile`s. It is available on [MELPA](https://melpa.org/) as [just-mode](https://melpa.org/#/just-mode).
An extension for VS Code by [skellock](https://github.com/skellock) is [available here](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=skellock.just) ([repository](https://github.com/skellock/vscode-just)), but is no longer actively developed.
The [Just package](https://github.com/nk9/just_sublime) by [nk9](https://github.com/nk9) with `just` syntax and some other tools is available on [PackageControl](https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Just).
See [the installation section](#installation) for how to install `just` on your computer. Try running `just --version` to make sure that it's installed correctly.
The search for a `justfile` is case insensitive, so any case, like `Justfile`, `JUSTFILE`, or `JuStFiLe`, will work. `just` will also look for files with the name `.justfile`, in case you'd like to hide a `justfile`.
`just` prints each command to standard error before running it, which is why `echo 'This is a recipe!'` was printed. This is suppressed for lines starting with `@`, which is why `echo 'This is another recipe.'` was not printed.
When `just` is invoked without a recipe, it runs the first recipe in the `justfile`. This recipe might be the most frequently run command in the project, like running the tests:
Note that you may need to add `--justfile {{justfile()}}` to the line above above. Without it, if you executed `just -f /some/distant/justfile -d .` or `just -f ./non-standard-justfile`, the plain `just --list` inside the recipe would not necessarily use the file you provided. It would try to find a justfile in your current path, maybe even resulting in a `No justfile found` error.
The heading text can be customized with `--list-heading`:
```sh
$ just --list --list-heading $'Cool stuff…\n'
Cool stuff…
test
build
```
And the indentation can be customized with `--list-prefix`:
```sh
$ just --list --list-prefix ····
Available recipes:
····test
····build
```
The argument to `--list-heading` replaces both the heading and the newline following it, so it should contain a newline if non-empty. It works this way so you can suppress the heading line entirely by passing the empty string:
```sh
$ just --list --list-heading ''
test
build
```
### Aliases
Aliases allow recipes to be invoked with alternative names:
If `allow-duplicate-recipes` is set to `true`, defining multiple recipes with the same name is not an error and the last definition is used. Defaults to `false`.
If `positional-arguments` is `true`, recipe arguments will be passed as positional arguments to commands. For linewise recipes, argument `$0` will be the name of the recipe.
When using an `sh`-compatible shell, such as `bash` or `zsh`, `$@` expands to the positional arguments given to the recipe, starting from one. When used within double quotes as `"$@"`, arguments including whitespace will be passed on as if they were double-quoted. That is, `"$@"` is equivalent to `"$1" "$2"`… When there are no positional parameters, `"$@"` and `$@` expand to nothing (i.e., they are removed).
# use python3 to execute recipe lines and backticks
set shell := ["python3", "-c"]
# use print to capture result of evaluation
foos := `print("foo" * 4)`
foo:
print("Snake snake snake snake.")
print("{{foos}}")
```
`just` passes the command to be executed as an argument. Many shells will need an additional flag, often `-c`, to make them evaluate the first argument.
*`set windows-powershell` uses the legacy `powershell.exe` binary, and is no longer recommended. See the `windows-shell` setting above for a more flexible way to control which shell is used on Windows.*
`just` uses `sh` on Windows by default. To use `powershell.exe` instead, set `windows-powershell` to true.
If [`dotenv-load`](#dotenv-load) is set, `just` will load environment variables from a file named `.env`. This file can be located in the same directory as your `justfile` or in a parent directory. These variables are environment variables, not `just` variables, and so must be accessed using `$VARIABLE_NAME` in recipes and backticks.
The `/` operator uses the `/` character, even on Windows. Thus, using the `/` operator should be avoided with paths that use universal naming convention (UNC), i.e., those that start with `\?`, since forward slashes are not supported with UNC paths.
Indented versions of both single- and double-quoted strings, delimited by triple single- or triple double-quotes, are supported. Indented string lines are stripped of leading whitespace common to all non-blank lines:
Similar to unindented strings, indented double-quoted strings process escape sequences, and indented single-quoted strings ignore escape sequences. Escape sequence processing takes place after unindentation. The unindentation algorithm does not take escape-sequence produced whitespace or newlines into account.
Normally, if a command returns a non-zero exit status, execution will stop. To continue execution after a command, even if it fails, prefix the command with `-`:
The `os_family()` function can be used to create cross-platform `justfile`s that work on various operating systems. For an example, see [cross-platform.just](https://github.com/casey/just/blob/master/examples/cross-platform.just) file.
-`quote(s)` - Replace all single quotes with `'\''` and prepend and append single quotes to `s`. This is sufficient to escape special characters for many shells, including most Bourne shell descendants.
-`replace(s, from, to)` - Replace all occurrences of `from` in `s` to `to`.
-`replace_regex(s, regex, replacement)` - Replace all occurrences of `regex` in `s` to `replacement`. Regular expressions are provided by the [Rust `regex` crate](https://docs.rs/regex/latest/regex/). See the [syntax documentation](https://docs.rs/regex/latest/regex/#syntax) for usage examples.
-`absolute_path(path)` - Absolute path to relative `path` in the working directory. `absolute_path("./bar.txt")` in directory `/foo` is `/foo/bar.txt`.
-`extension(path)` - Extension of `path`. `extension("/foo/bar.txt")` is `txt`.
-`file_name(path)` - File name of `path` with any leading directory components removed. `file_name("/foo/bar.txt")` is `bar.txt`.
-`file_stem(path)` - File name of `path` without extension. `file_stem("/foo/bar.txt")` is `bar`.
-`parent_directory(path)` - Parent directory of `path`. `parent_directory("/foo/bar.txt")` is `/foo`.
-`without_extension(path)` - `path` without extension. `without_extension("/foo/bar.txt")` is `/foo/bar`.
These functions can fail, for example if a path does not have an extension, which will halt execution.
##### Infallible
-`clean(path)` - Simplify `path` by removing extra path separators, intermediate `.` components, and `..` where possible. `clean("foo//bar")` is `foo/bar`, `clean("foo/..")` is `.`, `clean("foo/./bar")` is `foo/bar`.
-`join(a, b…)` - *This function uses `/` on Unix and `\` on Windows, which can be lead to unwanted behavior. The `/` operator, e.g., `a / b`, which always uses `/`, should be considered as a replacement unless `\`s are specifically desired on Windows.* Join path `a` with path `b`. `join("foo/bar", "baz")` is `foo/bar/baz`. Accepts two or more arguments.
-`path_exists(path)` - Returns `true` if the path points at an existing entity and `false` otherwise. Traverses symbolic links, and returns `false` if the path is inaccessible or points to a broken symlink.
Regular expressions are provided by the [regex crate](https://github.com/rust-lang/regex), whose syntax is documented on [docs.rs](https://docs.rs/regex/1.5.4/regex/#syntax). Since regular expressions commonly use backslash escape sequences, consider using single-quoted string literals, which will pass slashes to the regex parser unmolested.
Conditional expressions short-circuit, which means they only evaluate one of their branches. This can be used to make sure that backtick expressions don't run when they shouldn't.
#### Loading Environment Variables from a `.env` File
`just` will load environment variables from a `.env` file if [dotenv-load](#dotenv-load) is set. The variables in the file will be available as environment variables to the recipes. See [dotenv-integration](#dotenv-integration) for more information.
Variadic parameters prefixed with `*` accept _zero or more_ arguments and expand to a string containing those arguments separated by spaces, or an empty string if no arguments are present:
`just` will run the command `lynx https://www.google.com/?q=cat toupee`, which will get parsed by `sh` as `lynx`, `https://www.google.com/?q=cat`, and `toupee`, and not the intended `lynx` and `https://www.google.com/?q=cat toupee`.
Normal dependencies of a recipes always run before a recipe starts. That is to say, the dependee always runs before the depender. These dependencies are called "prior dependencies".
A recipe can also have subsequent dependencies, which run after the recipe and are introduced with an `&&`:
`just` doesn't support running recipes in the middle of another recipe, but you can call `just` recursively in the middle of a recipe. Given the following `justfile`:
This has limitations, since recipe `c` is run with an entirely new invocation of `just`: Assignments will be recalculated, dependencies might run twice, and command line arguments will not be propagated to the child `just` process.
It isn't strictly necessary, but `set -euxo pipefail` turns on a few useful features that make `bash` shebang recipes behave more like normal, linewise `just` recipe:
Together, these avoid a lot of shell scripting gotchas.
#### Shebang Recipe Execution on Windows
On Windows, shebang interpreter paths containing a `/` are translated from Unix-style paths to Windows-style paths using `cygpath`, a utility that ships with [Cygwin](http://www.cygwin.com).
The interpreter path `/bin/sh` will be translated to a Windows-style path using `cygpath` before being executed.
If the interpreter path does not contain a `/` it will be executed without being translated. This is useful if `cygpath` is not available, or you wish to pass a Windows-style path to the interpreter.
It is possible to use shell variables, but there's another problem. Every recipe line is run by a new shell instance, so variables set in one line won't be set in the next:
The best way to work around this is to use a shebang recipe. Shebang recipe bodies are extracted and run as scripts, so a single shell instance will run the whole thing:
Each line of each recipe is executed by a fresh shell, so it is not possible to share environment variables between recipes.
#### Using Python Virtual Environments
Some tools, like [Python's venv](https://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html), require loading environment variables in order to work, making them challenging to use with `just`. As a workaround, you can execute the virtual environment binaries directly:
The other is to use a shebang recipe. Shebang recipe bodies are extracted and run as scripts, so a single shell instance will run the whole thing, and thus a `pwd` on one line will affect later lines, just like a shell script:
Recipe lines can be indented with spaces or tabs, but not a mix of both. All of a recipe's lines must have the same indentation, but different recipes in the same `justfile` may use different indentation.
The extra leading whitespace before the second line of the `conditional` recipe will produce a parse error:
```sh
$ just conditional
error: Recipe line has extra leading whitespace
|
3 | echo 'True!'
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
```
To work around this, you can write conditionals on one line, escape newlines with slashes, or add a shebang to your recipe. Some examples of multi-line constructs are provided for reference.
### Selecting Recipes to Run With an Interactive Chooser
The `--choose` subcommand makes `just` invoke a chooser to select which recipes to run. Choosers should read lines containing recipe names from standard input and print one or more of those names separated by spaces to standard output.
Because there is currently no way to run a recipe that requires arguments with `--choose`, such recipes will not be given to the chooser. Private recipes and aliases are also skipped.
The chooser can be overridden with the `--chooser` flag. If `--chooser` is not given, then `just` first checks if `$JUST_CHOOSER` is set. If it isn't, then the chooser defaults to `fzf`, a popular fuzzy finder.
Arguments can be included in the chooser, i.e. `fzf --exact`.
The chooser is invoked in the same way as recipe lines. For example, if the chooser is `fzf`, it will be invoked with `sh -cu 'fzf'`, and if the shell, or the shell arguments are overridden, the chooser invocation will respect those overrides.
For example, if you are in a directory which contains a subdirectory named `foo`, which contains a `justfile` with the recipe `build`, which is also the default recipe, the following are all equivalent:
When a script with a shebang is executed, the system supplies the path to the script as an argument to the command in the shebang. So, with a shebang of `#!/usr/bin/env just --justfile`, the command will be `/usr/bin/env just --justfile PATH_TO_SCRIPT`.
With the above shebang, `just` will change its working directory to the location of the script. If you'd rather leave the working directory unchanged, use `#!/usr/bin/env just --working-directory . --justfile`.
Note: Shebang line splitting is not consistent across operating systems. The previous examples have only been tested on macOS. On Linux, you may need to pass the `-S` flag to `env`:
The users shell will parse `"some argument.txt"` as a single argument, but when `just` replaces `touch {{argument}}` with `touch some argument.txt`, the quotes are not preserved, and `touch` will receive two arguments.
This preserves `just`'s ability to catch variable name typos before running, for example if you were to write `{{arument}}`, but will not do what you want if the value of `argument` contains single quotes.
The `positional-arguments` setting causes all arguments to be passed as positional arguments, allowing them to be accessed with `$1`, `$2`, …, and `$@`, which can be then double-quoted to avoid further splitting by the shell:
This defeats `just`'s ability to catch typos, for example if you type `$2`, but works for all possible values of `argument`, including those with double quotes.
#### Exported Arguments
All arguments are exported when the `export` setting is set:
This defeats `just`'s ability to catch typos, for example if you type `$argumant`, but works for all possible values of `argument`, including those with double quotes.
There are a number of ways to configure the shell for linewise recipes, which are the default when a recipe does not start with a `#!` shebang. Their precedence, from highest to lowest, is:
1. The `--shell` and `--shell-arg` command line options. Passing either of these will cause `just` to ignore any settings in the current justfile.
2.`set windows-shell := [...]`
3.`set windows-powershell` (deprecated)
4.`set shell := [...]`
Since `set windows-shell` has higher precedence than `set shell`, you can use `set windows-shell` to pick a shell on Windows, and `set shell` to pick a shell for all other platforms.
A changelog for the latest release is available in [CHANGELOG.md](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/casey/just/master/CHANGELOG.md). Changelogs for previous releases are available on [the releases page](https://github.com/casey/just/releases). `just --changelog` can also be used to make a `just` binary print its changelog.
In `bash`, the aliased command may not keep the shell completion functionality described in the next section. Add the following line to your `.bashrc` to use the same completion function as `just` for your aliased command:
Shell completion scripts for Bash, Zsh, Fish, PowerShell, and Elvish are available in the [completions](https://github.com/casey/just/tree/master/completions) directory. Please refer to your shell's documentation for how to install them.
*macOS Note:* Recent versions of macOS use zsh as the default shell. If you use Homebrew to install `just`, it will automatically install the most recent copy of the zsh completion script in the Homebrew zsh directory, which the built-in version of zsh doesn't know about by default. It's best to use this copy of the script if possible, since it will be updated whenever you update `just` via Homebrew. Also, many other Homebrew packages use the same location for completion scripts, and the built-in zsh doesn't know about those either. To take advantage of `just` completion in zsh in this scenario, you can set `fpath` to the Homebrew location before calling `compinit`. Note also that Oh My Zsh runs `compinit` by default. So your `.zshrc` file could look like this:
Before `just` was a fancy Rust program it was a tiny shell script that called `make`. You can find the old version in [extras/just.sh](https://github.com/casey/just/blob/master/extras/just.sh).
If you want to call the recipes in `~/.user.justfile` by name, and don't mind creating an alias for every recipe, add the following to your shell's initialization script:
It took me way too long to realize that you could create recipe aliases like this. Notwithstanding my tardiness, I am very pleased to bring you this major advance in `justfile` technology.
You can customize the above aliases with additional options. For example, if you'd prefer to have the recipes in your `justfile` run in your home directory, instead of the current directory:
The following export statement gives `just` recipes access to local Node module binaries, and makes `just` recipe commands behave more like `script` entries in Node.js `package.json` files:
- [make](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_(software)): The Unix build tool that inspired `just`. There are a few different modern day descendents of the original `make`, including [FreeBSD Make](https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?make(1)) and [GNU Make](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/).
- [task](https://github.com/go-task/task): A YAML-based command runner written in Go.
- [maid](https://github.com/egoist/maid): A Markdown-based command runner written in JavaScript.
`just` welcomes your contributions! `just` is released under the maximally permissive [CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode.txt) public domain dedication and fallback license, so your changes must also be released under this license.
[Janus](https://github.com/casey/janus) is a tool that collects and analyzes `justfile`s, and can determine if a new version of `just` breaks or changes the interpretation of existing `justfile`s.
Before merging a particularly large or gruesome change, Janus should be run to make sure that nothing breaks. Don't worry about running Janus yourself, Casey will happily run it for you on changes that need it.
One example is that under some circumstances, `make` won't actually run the commands in a recipe. For example, if you have a file called `test` and the following makefile:
`make` assumes that the `test` recipe produces a file called `test`. Since this file exists and the recipe has no other dependencies, `make` thinks that it doesn't have anything to do and exits.
To be fair, this behavior is desirable when using `make` as a build system, but not when using it as a command runner. You can disable this behavior for specific targets using `make`'s built-in [`.PHONY` target name](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Phony-Targets.html), but the syntax is verbose and can be hard to remember. The explicit list of phony targets, written separately from the recipe definitions, also introduces the risk of accidentally defining a new non-phony target. In `just`, all recipes are treated as if they were phony.
Other examples of `make`'s idiosyncrasies include the difference between `=` and `:=` in assignments, the confusing error messages that are produced if you mess up your makefile, needing `$$` to use environment variables in recipes, and incompatibilities between different flavors of `make`.
[`cargo` build scripts](http://doc.crates.io/build-script.html) have a pretty specific use, which is to control how `cargo` builds your Rust project. This might include adding flags to `rustc` invocations, building an external dependency, or running some kind of codegen step.
`just`, on the other hand, is for all the other miscellaneous commands you might run as part of development. Things like running tests in different configurations, linting your code, pushing build artifacts to a server, removing temporary files, and the like.
Also, although `just` is written in Rust, it can be used regardless of the language or build system your project uses.
Further Ramblings
-----------------
I personally find it very useful to write a `justfile` for almost every project, big or small.
There are probably different commands to test, build, lint, deploy, and the like, and having them all in one place is useful and cuts down on the time you have to spend telling people which commands to run and how to type them.
And, with an easy place to put commands, it's likely that you'll come up with other useful things which are part of the project's collective wisdom, but which aren't written down anywhere, like the arcane commands needed for some part of your revision control workflow, install all your project's dependencies, or all the random flags you might need to pass to the build system.
Even for small, personal projects it's nice to be able to remember commands by name instead of ^Reverse searching your shell history, and it's a huge boon to be able to go into an old project written in a random language with a mysterious build system and know that all the commands you need to do whatever you need to do are in the `justfile`, and that if you type `just` something useful (or at least interesting!) will probably happen.
For ideas for recipes, check out [this project's `justfile`](https://github.com/casey/just/blob/master/justfile), or some of the `justfile`s [out in the wild](https://github.com/search?q=path%3A**%2Fjustfile&type=code).
