Task runner with YAML config written in Go

Task (aka Taskfile) is a task runner written in Go, which is similar to GNU Make, but in my opinion is a lot easier to use as you specify your tasks in yaml.

What to expect

In this post we will go through a quick demonstration using Task, how to install Task, as well as a couple of basic examples to get you up and running with Task.

Install

For mac, installing task::

$ brew install go-task/tap/go-task

For linux, installing task:

$ sh -c "$(curl --location https://taskfile.dev/install.sh)" -- -d -b /usr/local/bin

Or manual installation for arm as an example:

$ pushd /tmp
$ wget https://github.com/go-task/task/releases/download/v3.7.0/task_linux_arm.tar.gz
$ tar -xvf task_linux_arm.tar.gz
$ sudo mv task /usr/local/bin/task
$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/task
$ popd

Verify that task is installed:

$ task --version
Task version: v3.7.0

For more information check the installation page:

• https://taskfile.dev/#/installation

Usage

Task uses a default config file: Taskfile.yml in the current working directory where you can provide context on what your tasks should do.

To generate a Taskfile.yml with example config, task gives us a --init flag to generate a sample.

For a basic hello-world example, our task helloworld will echo out hello, world!. To generate the sample code, run:

task --init

Then update the config, to the following:

version: '3'

tasks:
  helloworld:
    desc: prints out hello world message
    cmds:
      - echo "hello, world!"

To demonstrate what the config means:

• tasks: refers to the list of tasks
• helloworld: is the task name
• desc: describes the task, useful for listing tasks
• cmds: the commands that the task will execute

To list all our tasks for our taskfile:

$ task --list
task: Available tasks for this project:
* helloworld: 	prints out hello world message

Which we call using the application task with the argument of the task name:

$ task helloworld
task: [helloworld] echo "hello, world!"
hello, world!

We can also reduce the output verbosity using silent:

version: '3'

tasks:
  helloworld:
    desc: prints out hello world message
    cmds:
      - echo "hello, world!"
    silent: true

Which will result in:

$ task helloworld
hello, world!

For a example using environment variables, we can use it in two ways:

• per task
• globally, across all tasks

For using environment variables per task:

version: '3'

tasks:
  helloworld:
    cmds:
      - echo "hello, $WORD!"
    env:
      WORD: world

Results in:

$ task helloworld
task: [helloworld] echo "hello, $WORD!"
hello, world!

For using environment variables globally across all tasks:

version: '3'

env:
  WORD: world

tasks:
  helloworld:
    cmds:
      - echo "hello, $WORD!"
    env:
      GREETING: hello

  byeworld:
    cmds:
      - echo "$GREETING, $WORD!"
    env:
      GREETING: bye

Running our first task:

$ task helloworld
task: [helloworld] echo "hello, $WORD!"
hello, world!

And running our second task:

$ task byeworld
task: [byeworld] echo "$GREETING, $WORD!"
bye, world!

To store your environment variables in a .env file, you can specify it as the following in your Taskfile.yml:

version: '3'

dotenv: ['.env']

tasks:
  helloworld:
    cmds:
      - echo "hello, $WORD!"
    env:
      GREETING: hello

  byeworld:
    cmds:
      - echo "$GREETING, $WORD!"
    env:
      GREETING: bye

And in your .env:

WORD=world

Then you should see your environment variables referenced from the .env file:

$ task helloworld
task: [helloworld] echo "hello, $WORD!"
hello, world!

We can also reference config using vars:

version: '3'

vars:
  GREETING: Hello, World!

tasks:
  default:
    desc: prints out a message
    cmds:
      - echo "{{.GREETING}}"

In this case our task name is default, therefore we can only run task without any arguments, as default with be the default task:

$ task
task: [default] echo "Hello, World!"
Hello, World!

To run both tasks with one command, you can specify dependencies, so if we define a task with zero commands but just dependencies, it will call those tasks and execute them:

version: '3'

env:
  WORD: world

tasks:
  helloworld:
    cmds:
      - echo "hello, $WORD!"
    env:
      GREETING: hello

  byeworld:
    cmds:
      - echo "$GREETING, $WORD!"
    env:
      GREETING: bye

  all:
    deps: [helloworld, byeworld]

So when we run the all task:

$ task all
task: [helloworld] echo "hello, $WORD!"
hello, world!
task: [byeworld] echo "$GREETING, $WORD!"
bye, world!

For more usage examples, have a look at their documentation:

• https://taskfile.dev/#/usage

Thank You

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