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----
-title: "Re-Inventing Task Runner That I Actually Used Daily"
-url: re-inventing-task-runner-that-i-actually-used-daily.html
-date: 2023-05-31T12:21:10+02:00
-draft: false
----
-
-Couple of months ago I had this brilliant idea of re-inventing the wheel by
-making an alternative for make. And so I went. Boldly into the battle. And to my
-big surprise my attempt resulted in not a completely useless piece of software.
-
-My initial requirements were quite simple but soon grow into something more
-ambitious. And looking back I should have stuck to the simple version. My
-laziness was on my side this time though. Because I haven’t implemented some of
-the features I now realise I really didn’t need them and they would bog the
-whole program and make it be something it was never meant to be.
-
-My basic requirements were following:
-
-- Syntax should be a tiny bit inspired by Rake and Rakefiles.
-- Should borrow the overall feel of a unit test experience.
-- Using something like Python would be a bit of an overkill.
-- The program must be statically compiled, so it can run on same architecture
-  without libc, musl dependencies or things like that.
-- Install ruby for rake is a bit overkill and can not be done with certain
-  really lightweight distributions like Alpine Linux. This tool would be usable
-  on such lightweight systems for remote debugging.
-- I want to use it for more than just compiling things. I want to use it as an
-  entry-point into a project, and I want this to help me indirectly document the
-  project as well.
-- It should be an abstraction over bash shell or the default system shell.
-    - Each task essentially becomes its own shell instance.
-- Must work on Linux and macOS systems.
-- By default, running `erd` list all the available tasks (when I use make, I
-  usually put a disclaimer that you should check Makefile to see all available
-  target).
-- Should support passing arguments when you run it from a shell.
-- Normal variable as the same as environmental variables. There is no
-  distinction. Every variable is also essentially an environment variable and
-  can be used by other programs.
-- State between tasks is not shared, and this makes this “pure” shell instances.
-- Should be single-threaded for the start and later expanded with `@spawn`
-  command.
-- Variables behave like macros and are preprocessed before evaluation.
-- Should support something like `assure` that would check if programs like C
-  compiler or Python (whatever the project requires) are installed on a machine.
-
-Quite a reasonable list of requirements. I do this things already in my
-Makefiles or/and Bash scripts. But I would like to avoid repeating myself every
-time I start working on something new.
-
-So I started with the following syntax.
-
-```ruby
-@env on
-
-# Override the default shell.
-@shell /bin/bash
-
-# Assure that program is installed.
-@assure docker-compose pip python3
-
-# Load local dotenv files (these are then globally available).
-@dotenv .env
-@dotenv .env.sample
-@dotenv some_other_file
-
-# This are local variables but still accessible in tasks.
-@var HI = "hey"
-@var TOKEN = "sometoken"
-@var EMAIL = "m@m.com"
-@var PASSWORD = "pass"
-@var EDITOR = "vim"
-
-@task dev "Test chars .:'}{]!//" does
-  echo "..." $HI
-end
-
-@task clean "Cleans the obj files" does
-  rm .obj
-end
-
-@task greet "Greets the user" does
-  echo "Hi user $TOKEN or $WINDOWID $EMAIL"
-end
-
-@task stack "Starts Docker stack" does
-  docker-compose -f stack.yml up
-end
-
-@task todo "Shows all todos in source files and count them" does
-  grep -ir "TODO|FIXME" . | wc -l
-end
-
-@task test1 "For testing 1" does
-  unknown-command
-  echo "test1"
-  ls -lha
-end
-
-@task test2 "For testing 2" does
-  echo "test1"
-  ls -lha
-  docker-compose -f samples/stack.yml up
-end
-```
-
-One thing that I really like about Errand. Yes, this is what it is called. And
-it is available at https://git.mitjafelicijan.com/errand.git/about/. Moving
-on. One thing that I really like is that a task is a persistent shell. By that I
-mean, that the whole task, even if it contains multiple command in one shell.
-In make each line in a target is that and you need to combine lines or add `\`
-at the end of the line.
-
-```bash
-# How you do this things in make.
-target:
-        source .venv/bin/activate \
-        python script.py
-```
-
-This solves this problem. Consider each task and what is being executed in that
-task a shell that will only close when all the tasks are completed.
-
-By self-documenting I mean that if you are in a directory with `Errandfile` in,
-if you only type `erd` and press enter it should by default display all the
-possible targets. In make i was doing this by having a first target be something
-like `default` that echos the message “Check Makefile for all available target.”
-Because all of the tasks in Errand require a message I use that to display let’s
-call it table of contents.
-
-Because I don’t use any external dependencies this whole thing can be statically
-compiled. So that also checked one of the boxes.
-
-It works on Linux and on a Mac so that’s also a bonus. I don’t believe this
-would work on Windows machines because of the way that I use shell instances. By
-you could use something like Windows Subsystem for Linux and run it in
-there. That is a valid option.
-
-To finish this essay off, how was it to use it in “real life”. I have to be
-honest. Some of the missing features still bother me. `@dotenv` directive is
-still missing and I need to implement this ASAP.
-
-Another thing that needs to happen is support for streaming output. Currently
-commands like `docker-compose` that runs in foreground mode is not compatible
-with Errand. So commands that stream output are an issue.  I need to revisit how
-I initiate shell and how I read stdout and stderr.  But that shouldn’t be a
-problem.
-
-I have been very satisfied with this thing. I am pleasantly surprised by how
-useful it is. I really wanted to test this in the wild before I commit to it. I
-have more abandoned project than Google and it’s bringing a massive shame to my
-family at this point. So I wanted to be sure that this is even useful. And it
-actually is. Quite surprised at myself.
-
-I really need to package this now and write proper docs. And maybe rewrite
-tokeniser. Its atrocious right now. Site to behold! But that is an issue for
-another time.