Add contrib/justfile containing useful development workflow commands.
Just recipes can be run by symlinking contrib/justfile into the repository root:
ln -s contrib/justfile justfile
And running:
just RECIPE
From any subdirectory.
Also add /justfile to .gitignore, to ignore the symlink into the repository root.
just is command runner with make-like syntax. It is not a build system, and only serves as convenient way of saving and running commands. It is available here:
https://github.com/casey/just/
Added in contrib/justfile, since just is a large, unreviewed dependency. Developers considering using just should make sure to take this into consideration.
I feel a bit uncomfortable opening a PR which adds a justfile, since I wrote and maintain just, but whenever I work on Bitcoin Core, I always wind up adding a justfile to make running and remembering commands easy, and I think others might find it useful as well.
I thought that adding it to contrib/justfile would be best. I try to maintain just to high standards, but those standards are those of an open source developer tool project, not a highly security sensitive project like Bitcoin Core, so putting it in contrib signals that users should take that into consideration before using just.
just supports a number of features that make doesn’t, and in general is less error prone:
- Recipes can take arguments
- No
.PHONYneeded - Good error messages, both for runtime and syntax errors
- Uses
{{…}}for interpolation instead of$, so no need to$$ - List recipes with
just --list - Completion scripts for most shells
A justfile serves as a convenient way to save and run commands, and as a form of documentation of what commands developers are likely to need when working on the project.
I included configure, build, clean, test, and watch commands, along with d and cli commands which run the built bitcoind and bitcoin-cli in regtest mode, forwarding any additional arguments.
