rad 💯

a general purpose build tool.

statically typed, batteries included. command tasks, function tasks, and make-style tasks support.

master

jump to:

  1. documentation site
  2. usage
  3. install
  4. what
  5. why
  6. why not <my-favorite-build-tool>?
  7. manual

usage

$ rad <task-name> [--help]

// rad.ts
import { Tasks } from "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cdaringe/rad/master/src/mod.ts";

// command tasks
const format = `prettier --write`
const test = `deno test`

// function tasks
const compile = {
  dependsOn: [format],
  fn({ sh, ...toolkit }) => sh('tsc')
}

// make-style tasks
const transpile = {
  target: "phony",
  prereqs: ["p1", "p2"],
  async onMake({ logger }, { changedPrereqs /*, prereqs */}) {
    for await (const req of changedPrereqs) {
      logger.info(`req: ${req.filename} ${JSON.stringify(req.info)}`);
    }
  },
}

export const tasks: Tasks = {
  compile,
  format,
  test
}

install

there are a few formal ways to use rad. regardless of the route you choose, know that all strategies support using pinned versions, adherent to semver. see the releases page.

usage install-method install-steps
cli deno deno install rad https://github.com/cdaringe/rad/blob/master/src/bin.ts
cli docker docker pull cdaringe/rad 1
cli curl+sh `curl .sh
library deno import * as rad from https://github.com/cdaringe/rad/blob/master/src/mod.ts

1For docker users, consider making a nice shell alias

# shell profile, e.g. .bash_profile
function rad() {
  docker run --rm -v $PWD:/rad cdaringe/rad "$@";
}

what is it

a build tool! it competes with make, npm-scripts, bazel, gradle, ant, gulp, or any of the other many tools out there!

rad offers:

  • simple, programmable task interfaces
  • easy to understand, declarative build steps
  • type-checked tasks
  • productive toolkit API for nuanced tasks that benefit from progamming. see toolkit
  • bottom-up, make-style build targets
    • fast builds, skip redundant work when inputs haven't changed
  • cli mode, or library mode
  • portable. build automation for any language or project, in many environments (*limited to Deno target architectures, for the time being. long term, we may package this in Rust)
  • great UX
  • no quirky DSLs (make, gradle, and friends 😢). your build is code--tasks are typescript & are indeed type-checked!
  • debuggable. 🐛 inspect your data, tasks, or even rad itself
  • simplicity of make, without the DSL, coupling to sh, and C/C++ biases
  • use a real scripting language--not bash/sh! shell languages are great for running other programs, not for plumbing data

why

🙄, another build tool?.

definitely. no other build tools in 2018 2019 2020 have a sufficiently balanced enough feature set that the average polyglot programmer needs without coercing it or piling on extraneous complexity.

see why not just use