rad - documentation site

rad 💯

A general purpose build tool.

• Concise, statically typed, batteries included.
• No DSL, no stringly typed tasks, no malarkey.
• Command tasks, function tasks, and make-like tasks supported.

Jump to:

1. Documentation site
2. Usage
3. Install
4. What
5. Why not <my-favorite-build-tool>?
6. Manual

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Usage

Rad is generally used as a CLI:

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

For example, $ rad build or $ rad --log-level=info test!

It can be used as a library too :).

Rad always consumes a rad.ts file, such as the one shown here:

// rad.ts
import { Task, Tasks } from "https://deno.land/x/[email protected]/src/mod.ts";

// command/shell tasks
// [name: string, cmd: string]
const format = ["format", `prettier --write`];
const test = ["test", `deno test`];

// function tasks
const compile: Task = {
  dependsOn: [format],
  fn: ({ sh, ...toolkit }) => sh("tsc"),
  // name: "compile" [optional]
};
const greet = {
  fn: ({ fs }) => fs.writeFile("/tmp/hello", "world"),
};

// make-style tasks
const transpile: Task = {
  target: "phony",
  prereqs: ["prereq1", "prereq2"],
  async onMake({ logger }, { changedPrereqs /*, prereqs */ }) {
    for await (const req of changedPrereqs) {
      logger.info(`req: ${req.path} ${req.isFile}`);
    }
  },
};

export const tasks: Tasks = {
  compile,
  format,
  greet,
  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 --global -f -A -n rad https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cdaringe/rad/v8.0.1/src/bin.ts
cli	docker	docker pull cdaringe/rad 1
cli	curl	curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cdaringe/rad/v8.0.1/assets/install.sh | sh (versioned) curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cdaringe/rad/main/assets/install.sh | sh (latest)
library	deno	import * as rad from https://github.com/cdaringe/rad/blob/main/v8.0.1/mod.ts

¹For docker users, consider making a nice shell alias

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

What is it

A build tool! It competes with make, npm-scripts, velociraptor, bazel, gradle, ant, gulp, or any of the other many tools out there! On various metrics, rad is subjectively better than some of the outstanding tools out there, and in some cases, not-so-much. We invite you to understand some of its core characteristics and interfaces.

rad offers:

• simple, programmable task interfaces
• easy to understand, declarative build steps
• type-checked tasks
• no quirky DSLs (make, gradle, and friends 😢). your build is code, not an arbitrary language or stringly (read: bummerly) typed script runner.
• productive toolkit API for nuanced tasks that benefit from programming. see toolkit
• bottom-up, make-style build targets
  • fast builds, skip redundant work when inputs haven't changed
• cli mode, or library mode
• portability. 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
• debug-ability. 🐛 inspect your data, tasks, or even rad itself
• employs a real scripting language--not bash/sh! shell languages are great for running other programs, not for plumbing data

See why not <my-favorite-build-tool>?

Read more on our documentation site