Nake is a magic task runner tool for .NET. It's a hybrid of Shovel and Rake. The DSL for defining tasks is uniquely minimal and it's just plain C# code! Nake is built on top of the latest Roslyn release so you can use all of the C# V6 features in you scripts and even more.
There multiple ways in which Nake could be installed. You can install it by using NuGet package, or you can get it by downloading a standalone executable from GitHub releases page, and of course you can always build it from sources.
To install Nake via NuGet, run this command in NuGet package manager console:
PM> Install-Package Nake
#r "System" //
#r "System.Core" // #reference assemblies from the GAC
#r "System.Data" // (these are referenced by default)
#r "System.Xml" //
#r "System.Xml.Linq" //
#r "WindowsBase, Version=4.0..." // you can reference assembly by its full name
#r "Packages\NUnit.2.6.2\nunit.dll" // or by using relative path
#r "C:\Orleans\SDK\Orleans.dll" // or by absolute path
#load "Other.csx" // #load code from other script files
#load "Build\Another.csx" // (both absolute and relative paths are fine)
using System; //
using System.IO; // standard C# namespace imports
using System.Linq; // (these are imported by default)
using System.Text; //
using System.Collections.Generic; //
using System.IO.Path; // C# V6 "using static members" feature
using System.Console; // will make you scripts more terse
WriteLine("Are you ready? Y/N:"); // any code you put on the script level
if (ReadLine() == "N") // will run before any of the tasks are executed
Exit("See you soon ..."); // (useful for one-off initialization)
var greeting = "Hello"; // you can override any script-level variables
var who = "world"; // with the values passed from the command line
/// Prints greeting // this F#-style summary is shown in task listing
[Task] void Welcome() // [Task] makes method runnable from command line
{
WriteLine("{greeting},{who}!"); // forget ugly string.Format & string concatenation
} // with built-in support for string interpolation
[Task] void Tell(
string what = "Hello", // for parameterized tasks you can supply
string whom = "world", // arguments directly from the command line
int times = 1, // (string, int, boolean and
DayOfWeek when, // enum arguments are supported)
bool quiet = false // + switch-like syntax for booleans (eg, --quiet)
)
{
var emphasis = quiet ? "" : "!";
for (; times > 0; times--)
WriteLine("{what}, {whom} on {when}{emphasis}");
}
[Step] void Clean() // Steps are Tasks with 'run once' semantics
{ // (foundation of any build automation tool)
Delete("{OutputPath}\*.*");
}
[Step] void Build(string cfg = "Debug")
{
Clean(); // unlike popular tools, there is no special syntax
------- // for specifying task (step) dependencies
MSBuild("Nake.sln", cfg); // (it's just plain old C# method invocation)
}
[Step] void Test()
{
Clean(); // you have complete control over decision,
Build(); // when and in what order dependent steps should run
------- // (and Nake makes sure of run-once behavior)
NUnit("{OutputPath}\*.Tests.dll")
}
[Step] void Publish(bool beta = false)
{
Test(); // sometimes, you need to execute the same step but with
Build("Release"); // different args. Unlike other build automation tools
------ // there is no special syntax to force step to run again,
Nuget("Nake.nuspec", beta) // you just invoke it with different arguments!
}
var apiKey = "$NugetKey$"; // $var$ is the shortcut syntax for getting
Push(apiKey, "{PackagePath}"); // value of environment variable
Write("$NakeStartupDirectory$"); // these special environment variables
Write("$NakeScriptDirectory$"); // are automatically created by Nake
Write("{{esc}}"); // will simply print {esc} (no string interpolation)
Write("$$esc$$"); // will simply print $esc$ (no env variable inlining)
class Azure // namespace declarations cannot be used with scripts,
{ // but could be easily emulated with class declarations
class Queue // and you can nest them infinitely as you like
{
[Task] void Clean() // then from the command line you would invoke
{} // this task by its full path (ie, azure.queue.clean)
}
}
[Task] void Default() // running Nake without any options
{ // will cause it to run the "default" task
Build();
}
General syntax is: Nake [options ...] [VAR=VALUE ...] [task ...]
> Nake -f "Nake.csx" Log=1 build // set Log environment variable to 1 and
// then run Build() task from Nake.csx file
> Nake Log=1 build // equivalent to the above as Nake will automatically try
// to use Nake.csx file if present in current directory
Options:
-? --help Display help message and exit
-v --version Display the program version and exit
-q --quiet Do not echo informational messages to standard output
-s --silent Same as --quiet but also suppresses user generated log messages
-f --nakefile FILE Use FILE as Nake project file
-d --directory DIR Use DIR as current directory
-t --trace Enables full stack traces in error reporting + task execution trace
--debug Enables full script debugging in Visual Studio
-T --tasks [PATTERN] Display tasks with descriptions matching optional PATTERN and exit
--runner NAME Use NAME as runner file name in task listing
-r --reset-cache Resets compilation output cache
General syntax for invoking tasks and passing arguments is similar to the normal C# method invocation syntax, except
is used instead of ,
to separate task arguments, and =
is used instead of :
for specifying named argument values. Also, boolean arguments support special --
switch syntax.
> Nake build // run Build task with default arg values
> Nake build Release // or with first positional argument set to 'Release'
> Nake build cfg=Release // or with named argument 'cfg' set to 'Release'
> Nake build Release outDir="C:\Tmp" // you can mix positional and named arguments
> Nake build ; test // or invoke multiple tasks within a same session
> Nake build `; test // also escape ';' when running in PowerShell console
> Nake publish --beta // invoke Publish task with 'beta' arg set to 'true'
Out-of-the box Nake includes a lot of useful convinient utility functions to help you with:
- running external tools, such as command-line commands or MSBuild
- selecting and transforming file system paths (globber)
- casual file system tasks, such as copying, moving, deleting files/folders
- logging messages to console
- working with environment variables
- controlling Nake's runner
- etc
Check out table below for reference on using utility library:
Class | Functions |
---|---|
Run | Running external tools: Cmd, MSBuild |
App | Controlling Nake's runner |
Log | Logging messages to console |
Env | Working with environment variables |
FS | File-system tasks, such as copy/move/del/mkdir/etc |
FileSet | File path selection and transformation (globber) |
Color | Printing to console in color |
Location | Current directory and special paths (script, startup) |
Also, see 'by use-case' reference on wiki.
class Azure
{
StorageAccount account;
static Azure() // this will run once before any of the
{ // tasks in this namespace are executed
account = Init(); // (useful for one-off initialization)
}
}
- Running on Mono
- Interactive mode
Gimme your pull requests!
Have a look at Nake.csx or Publish.csx. Those are the Nake files used to build and publish Nake itself (ye, we're eating our own dog food). Also, additional samples can be contributed to samples repository.
General discussion group could be found here. Also, for news you can follow Nake's official twitter account (or my account for that matter). The twitter's hashtag is #naketool
.
- Thanks to everyone in the Roslyn compiler team for making this happen
- Thanks to all members of the scriptcs team for lending me their script pre-processing code
- Special thanks to Anton Martynenko for giving me an idea and steering Nake's DSL in the right direction
- Hugs and kisses to my lovely Valery for being so patient and supportive, and for feeding me food and beer, while I was sitting in my cage working on Nake, instead of spending that time with her
Apache 2 License