Rox

Composable build tool inspired by Nox, Make & cargo-make

Rox gives you the ability to build your own devtools CLI using YAML files. Tasks and Pipelines are dynamically added to the CLI as subcommands at runtime. The flexibility of rox intends to makes it easier for dev teams to standardize their workflows without writing endless "glue" scripts.

The subcommands and their help messages are automatically populated at runtime from the name and description of each task.

See gameslog for an example of usage in a real project.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Roxfile Syntax
  • Version Requirements
  • File Requirements
  • Templates
  • Tasks
  • Pipelines
  • Putting it all Together
• Usage Examples

Installation

Rox can be installed via binaries provided with each release here. As an alternative, it can also be installed via cargo with cargo install rox-cli.

Roxfile Syntax

Rox requires that a roxfile.yml exists in the directory where the command is run. This is typically the root directory of the repo.

Version Requirements

Version Requirements are used to ensure that any required CLI tool matches your specified version requirements.

```yaml versionrequirements: - command: "docker version --format {{.Client.Version}}" # Output: 20.10.23 minimumversion: "20.10.7" maximum_version: "21.0.0"

• command: "python --version" # Output: Python 3.9.13 # Splits on spaces and grabs the last output token as the Version split: true minimum_version: "3.8" ```

File Requirements

File Requirements ensure that certain expected files are present.

```yaml file_requirements: - path: "Cargo.toml"

• path: ".env" createifnot_exists: true # Create the file if it doesn't exist, as opposed to throwing an error ```

Templates

Templates allow you to specify templated commands that can be reused by tasks. Values are injected positionally. These are intended to facilitate code reuse and uniformity across similar but different commands.

yaml templates: - name: docker_build command: "docker build {path} -t rox:{image_tag}" symbols: ["{path}", "{image_tag}"]

Tasks

Tasks are discrete units of execution. They're intended to be single shell commands that can then be composed via pipelines. They are also able to leverage templates by specifying one with uses and injecting values with values.

```yaml tasks: - name: build-prod description: "Build the application dockerfile" uses: docker_build values: [".", "latest"]

• name: "watch-run" description: "Run the application, restarting on file changes" command: "cargo watch -c -x run" ```

Pipelines

Pipelines are the canonical way to chain together multiple tasks into a single unit of execution. They also support parallel execution with the -p flag but it is up to the user to ensure that the tasks can be safely executed in parallel.

yaml pipelines: - name: example-pipeline description: Composes a few tasks tasks: ["task-a", "task-b", "task-c"]

Putting it all together

Now that we've seen each individual piece of the Rox puzzle, we can put them all together into a full roxfile.

```yaml versionrequirements: - command: "docker version --format {{.Client.Version}}" minimumversion: "20.10.7" maximum_version: "21.0.0"

filerequirements: - path: ".env" createifnotexists: true

templates: - name: dockerbuild command: "docker build {path} -t rox:{imagetag}" symbols: ["{path}", "{image_tag}"]

pipelines: - name: build-all description: "Build a release artifact binary and Docker image" tasks: ["build-release-binary", "build-release-image"]

• name: ci description: "Run all CI-related tasks" tasks: ["fmt", "test", "clippy-ci"]

tasks:

# Docker-related - name: build-local description: "Build the application dockerfile" uses: docker_build values: [".", "local"]

• name: build-prod description: "Build the application dockerfile" uses: docker_build values: [".", "latest"]

  CI-Related

• name: "clippy-ci" description: "Run Clippy with a non-zero exit if warnings are found." command: "cargo clippy -- -D warnings"

• name: fmt command: "cargo fmt"

• name: test command: "cargo test" description: "Run tests"

  Release-related

• name: build-release-binary description: "Build a release binary with cargo." command: "cargo build --release"

• name: build-release-image description: "Build a production image for Docker." command: "docker build . -t rox:latest"

• name: secret_task description: "This task isn't callable directly from the CLI, but is available to pipelines!" hide: true

```

Usage Examples

The following are command-line examples for running rox with various flags and subcommands.

Show Tasks/Pipelines:

sh rox task

sh rox pl

https://github.com/ThomasLaPiana/rox/assets/5105354/2041522d-4cb2-4c96-9655-c1802fdf16c8

Run a Task:

sh rox task build-binary

https://github.com/ThomasLaPiana/rox/assets/5105354/9f152b3b-8a65-4409-af5c-da029c3e8ae4

Run a Pipeline:

sh rox pl ci

https://github.com/ThomasLaPiana/rox/assets/5105354/02d99bc6-0dc1-4c33-a753-2868043c4d43

Run a Pipeline in Parallel:

sh rox pl -p build-release-all

Releasing

Rox is released by running cargo release locally.

Steps to Release:

1. Make sure that all desired changes are pushed up and merged to main
2. cargo install cargo-release (if not already installed)
3. cargo release [major|minor|patch] --execute - Updates the Cargo.toml, commits and pushes the change, and then publishes the crate to
4. cargo release tag --execute - Creates a git tag with the same version as the Cargo.toml
5. cargo release push --execute - Pushes the git tag
6. Finally, a CI job is automatically triggered to build and upload the release assets