14 KiB
Usage
Getting started
Create a file called Taskfile.yml
in the root of your project.
The cmds
attribute should contain the commands of a task.
The example below allows compiling a Go app and uses Minify to concat
and minify multiple CSS files into a single one.
version: '2'
tasks:
build:
cmds:
- go build -v -i main.go
assets:
cmds:
- minify -o public/style.css src/css
Running the tasks is as simple as running:
task assets build
Task uses github.com/mvdan/sh, a native Go sh
interpreter. So you can write sh/bash commands and it will work even on
Windows, where sh
or bash
are usually not available. Just remember any
executable called must be available by the OS or in PATH.
If you ommit a task name, "default" will be assumed.
Environment
You can specify environment variables that are added when running a command:
version: '2'
tasks:
build:
cmds:
- echo $hallo
env:
hallo: welt
Operating System specific tasks
If you add a Taskfile_{{GOOS}}.yml
you can override or amend your Taskfile
based on the operating system.
Example:
Taskfile.yml:
version: '2'
tasks:
build:
cmds:
- echo "default"
Taskfile_linux.yml:
version: '2'
tasks:
build:
cmds:
- echo "linux"
Will print out linux
and not default
.
Keep in mind that the version of the files should match. Also, when redefining a task the whole task is replaced, properties of the task are not merged.
It's also possible to have an OS specific Taskvars.yml
file, like
Taskvars_windows.yml
, Taskfile_linux.yml
, or Taskvars_darwin.yml
. See the
variables section below.
Including other Taskfiles
This feature is still experimental and may have bugs.
If you want to share tasks between different projects (Taskfiles), you can use
the importing mechanism to include other Taskfiles using the includes
keyword:
version: '2'
includes:
docs: ./documentation # will look for ./documentation/Taskfile.yml
docker: ./DockerTasks.yml
The tasks described in the given Taskfiles will be available with the informed
namespace. So, you'd call task docs:serve
to run the serve
task from
documentation/Taskfile.yml
or task docker:build
to run the build
task
from the DockerTasks.yml
file.
The included Taskfiles must be using the same schema version the main Taskfile uses.
Also, for now included Taskfiles can't include other Taskfiles. This was a deliberate decision to keep use and implementation simple. If you disagree, open an GitHub issue and explain your use case. =)
Task directory
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
:
version: '2'
tasks:
serve:
dir: public/www
cmds:
# run http server
- caddy
Task dependencies
You may have tasks that depend on others. Just pointing them on deps
will
make them run automatically before running the parent task:
version: '2'
tasks:
build:
deps: [assets]
cmds:
- go build -v -i main.go
assets:
cmds:
- minify -o public/style.css src/css
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:
version: '2'
tasks:
assets:
deps: [js, css]
js:
cmds:
- minify -o public/script.js src/js
css:
cmds:
- minify -o public/style.css src/css
If there is more than one dependency, they always run in parallel for better performance.
If you want to pass information to dependencies, you can do that the same manner as you would to call another task:
version: '2'
tasks:
default:
deps:
- task: echo_sth
vars: {TEXT: "before 1"}
- task: echo_sth
vars: {TEXT: "before 2"}
cmds:
- echo "after"
echo_sth:
cmds:
- echo {{.TEXT}}
Calling another task
When a task has many dependencies, they are executed concurrently. This will often result in a faster build pipeline. But in some situations you may need to call other tasks serially. In this case, just use the following syntax:
version: '2'
tasks:
main-task:
cmds:
- task: task-to-be-called
- task: another-task
- echo "Both done"
task-to-be-called:
cmds:
- echo "Task to be called"
another-task:
cmds:
- echo "Another task"
Overriding variables in the called task is as simple as informing vars
attribute:
version: '2'
tasks:
main-task:
cmds:
- task: write-file
vars: {FILE: "hello.txt", CONTENT: "Hello!"}
- task: write-file
vars: {FILE: "world.txt", CONTENT: "World!"}
write-file:
cmds:
- echo "{{.CONTENT}}" > {{.FILE}}
The above syntax is also supported in deps
.
Prevent unnecessary work
If a task generates something, you can inform Task the source and generated files, so Task will prevent to run them if not necessary.
version: '2'
tasks:
build:
deps: [js, css]
cmds:
- go build -v -i main.go
js:
cmds:
- minify -o public/script.js src/js
sources:
- src/js/**/*.js
generates:
- public/script.js
css:
cmds:
- minify -o public/style.css src/css
sources:
- src/css/**/*.css
generates:
- public/style.css
sources
and generates
can be files or 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 a message like
Task "js" is up to date
.
If you prefer this check to be made by the content of the files, instead of
its timestamp, just set the method
property to checksum
.
You will probably want to ignore the .task
folder in your .gitignore
file
(It's there that Task stores the last checksum).
version: '2'
tasks:
build:
cmds:
- go build .
sources:
- ./*.go
generates:
- app{{exeExt}}
method: checksum
TIP: method
none
skips any validation and always run the task.
Alternatively, you can inform a sequence of tests as status
. If no error
is returned (exit status 0), the task is considered up-to-date:
version: '2'
tasks:
generate-files:
cmds:
- mkdir directory
- touch directory/file1.txt
- touch directory/file2.txt
# test existence of files
status:
- test -d directory
- test -f directory/file1.txt
- test -f directory/file2.txt
You can use --force
or -f
if you want to force a task to run even when
up-to-date.
Also, task --status [tasks]...
will exit with a non-zero exit code if any of
the tasks are not up-to-date.
Variables
When doing interpolation of variables, Task will look for the below. They are listed below in order of importance (e.g. most important first):
- Variables declared locally in the task
- Variables given while calling a task from another. (See Calling another task above)
- Variables declared in the
vars:
option in theTaskfile
- Variables available in the
Taskvars.yml
file - Environment variables
Example of sending parameters with environment variables:
$ TASK_VARIABLE=a-value task do-something
Since some shells don't support above syntax to set environment variables (Windows) tasks also accepts a similar style when not in the beginning of the command. Variables given in this form are only visible to the task called right before.
$ task write-file FILE=file.txt "CONTENT=Hello, World!" print "MESSAGE=All done!"
Example of locally declared vars:
version: '2'
tasks:
print-var:
cmds:
echo "{{.VAR}}"
vars:
VAR: Hello!
Example of global vars in a Taskfile.yml
:
version: '2'
vars:
GREETING: Hello from Taskfile!
tasks:
greet:
cmds:
- echo "{{.GREETING}}"
Example of Taskvars.yml
file:
PROJECT_NAME: My Project
DEV_MODE: production
GIT_COMMIT: {sh: git log -n 1 --format=%h}
Variables expansion
Variables are expanded 2 times by default. You can change that by setting the
expansions:
option. Change that will be necessary if you compose many
variables together:
version: '2'
expansions: 3
vars:
FOO: foo
BAR: bar
BAZ: baz
FOOBAR: "{{.FOO}}{{.BAR}}"
FOOBARBAZ: "{{.FOOBAR}}{{.BAZ}}"
tasks:
default:
cmds:
- echo "{{.FOOBARBAZ}}"
Dynamic variables
The below syntax (sh:
prop in a variable) is considered a dynamic variable.
The value will be treated as a command and the output assigned. If there is one
or more trailing newlines, the last newline will be trimmed.
version: '2'
tasks:
build:
cmds:
- go build -ldflags="-X main.Version={{.GIT_COMMIT}}" main.go
vars:
GIT_COMMIT:
sh: git log -n 1 --format=%h
This works for all types of variables.
Go's template engine
Task parse commands as Go's template engine before executing
them. Variables are accessible through dot syntax (.VARNAME
).
All functions by the Go's sprig lib are available. The following example gets the current date in a given format:
version: '2'
tasks:
print-date:
cmds:
- echo {{now | date "2006-01-02"}}
Task also adds the following functions:
OS
: Returns operating system. Possible values are "windows", "linux", "darwin" (macOS) and "freebsd".ARCH
: return the architecture Task was compiled to: "386", "amd64", "arm" or "s390x".splitLines
: Splits Unix (\n) and Windows (\r\n) styled newlines.catLines
: Replaces Unix (\n) and Windows (\r\n) styled newlines with a space.toSlash
: Does nothing on Unix, but on Windows converts a string from\
path format to/
.fromSlash
: Oposite oftoSlash
. Does nothing on Unix, but on Windows converts a string from\
path format to/
.exeExt
: Returns the right executable extension for the current OS (".exe"
for Windows,""
for others).
Example:
version: '2'
tasks:
print-os:
cmds:
- echo '{{OS}} {{ARCH}}'
- echo '{{if eq OS "windows"}}windows-command{{else}}unix-command{{end}}'
# This will be path/to/file on Unix but path\to\file on Windows
- echo '{{fromSlash "path/to/file"}}'
enumerated-file:
vars:
CONTENT: |
foo
bar
cmds:
- |
cat << EOF > output.txt
{{range $i, $line := .CONTENT | splitLines -}}
{{printf "%3d" $i}}: {{$line}}
{{end}}EOF
Help
Running task --list
(or task -l
) lists all tasks with a description.
The following taskfile:
version: '2'
tasks:
build:
desc: Build the go binary.
cmds:
- go build -v -i main.go
test:
desc: Run all the go tests.
cmds:
- go test -race ./...
js:
cmds:
- minify -o public/script.js src/js
css:
cmds:
- minify -o public/style.css src/css
would print the following output:
* build: Build the go binary.
* test: Run all the go tests.
Silent mode
Silent mode disables echoing of commands before Task runs it. For the following Taskfile:
version: '2'
tasks:
echo:
cmds:
- echo "Print something"
Normally this will be print:
echo "Print something"
Print something
With silent mode on, the below will be print instead:
Print something
There's three ways to enable silent mode:
- At command level:
version: '2'
tasks:
echo:
cmds:
- cmd: echo "Print something"
silent: true
- At task level:
version: '2'
tasks:
echo:
cmds:
- echo "Print something"
silent: true
- Or globally with
--silent
or-s
flag
If you want to suppress stdout instead, just redirect a command to /dev/null
:
version: '2'
tasks:
echo:
cmds:
- echo "This will print nothing" > /dev/null
Dry run mode
Dry run mode (--dry
) compiles and steps through each task, printing the commands
that would be run without executing them. This is useful for debugging your Taskfiles.
Ignore errors
You have the option to ignore errors during command execution. Given the following Taskfile:
version: '2'
tasks:
echo:
cmds:
- exit 1
- echo "Hello World"
Task will abort the execution after running exit 1
because the status code 1
stands for EXIT_FAILURE
.
However it is possible to continue with execution using ignore_error
:
version: '2'
tasks:
echo:
cmds:
- cmd: exit 1
ignore_error: true
- echo "Hello World"
ignore_error
can also be set for a task, which mean errors will be supressed
for all commands. But keep in mind this option won't propagate to other tasks
called either by deps
or cmds
!
Output syntax
By default, Task just redirect the STDOUT and STDERR of the running commands to the shell in real time. This is good for having live feedback for log printed by commands, but the output can become messy if you have multiple commands running at the same time and printing lots of stuff.
To make this more customizable, there are currently three different output options you can choose:
interleaved
(default)group
prefixed
To choose another one, just set it to root in the Taskfile:
version: '2'
output: 'group'
tasks:
# ...
The group
output will print the entire output of a command once, after it
finishes, so you won't have live feedback for commands that take a long time
to run.
The prefix
output will prefix every line printed by a command with
[task-name]
as the prefix, but you can customize the prefix for a command
with the prefix:
attribute:
version: '2'
output: prefixed
tasks:
default:
deps:
- task: print
vars: {TEXT: foo}
- task: print
vars: {TEXT: bar}
- task: print
vars: {TEXT: baz}
print:
cmds:
- echo "{{.TEXT}}"
prefix: "print-{{.TEXT}}"
silent: true
$ task default
[print-foo] foo
[print-bar] bar
[print-baz] baz
Watch tasks
If you give a --watch
or -w
argument, task will watch for file changes
and run the task again. This requires the sources
attribute to be given,
so task know which files to watch.