diff --git a/website/.vitepress/config.ts b/website/.vitepress/config.ts index 5864b144..089bcdf5 100644 --- a/website/.vitepress/config.ts +++ b/website/.vitepress/config.ts @@ -157,6 +157,16 @@ export default defineConfig({ sidebar: { '/blog/': [ + { + text: '2025', + collapsed: false, + items: [ + { + text: 'Built-in Core Utilities', + link: '/blog/windows-core-utils' + } + ] + }, { text: '2024', collapsed: false, diff --git a/website/src/blog/index.md b/website/src/blog/index.md index 0e84b85c..9d6c9c31 100644 --- a/website/src/blog/index.md +++ b/website/src/blog/index.md @@ -3,6 +3,15 @@ title: Blog description: Latest news and updates from the Task team --- + + + +When I started Task back in 2017, one of my biggest goals was to build a task +runner that would work well on all major platforms, including Windows. +At the time, I was using Windows as my main platform, and it caught my attention +how much of a pain it was to get a working version of Make on Windows, for +example. + +## The very beginning + +The very first versions, which looked very prototyp-ish, already supported +Windows, but it was falling back to Command Prompt (`cmd.exe`) to run commands +if `bash` wasn't available in the system. That didn't mean you couldn't run +Bash commands on Windows necessarily, because if you used Task inside Git Bash, +it would expose `bash.exe` into your `$PATH`, which made possible for Task to +use it. Outside of it, you would be out of luck, though, because running on +Command Prompt meant that the commands wouldn't be really compatible. + +## Adopting a shell interpreter + +I didn't take too much time to discover that there was +[a shell interpreter for Go that was very solid][mvdan], and I quickly adopted +it to ensure we would be able to run commands with consistency across all +platforms. It was fun because once adopted, I had the opportunity to +[make some contributions to make it more stable][mvdan-prs], which I'm sure the +author appreciated. + +## The lack of core utilities + +There was one important thing missing, though. If you needed to use any core +utilities on Windows, like copying files with `cp`, moving with `mv`, creating +a directory with `mkdir -p`, that likely would just fail :boom:. +There were workarounds, of course. You could run `task` inside Git Bash which +exposed core utils in `$PATH` for you, or you could install these core utils +manually (there are a good number of alternative implementations available +for download). + +That was still far from ideal, though. One of my biggest goals with Task is that it +should "just work", even on Windows. Requiring additional setup to make +things work is exactly what I wanted to avoid. + +## They finally arrive! + +And here we are, in 2025, 8 years after the initial release. We might be late, +but I'm happy nonetheless. From now on, the following core utilities will be +available on Windows. This is the start. We want to add more with time. + +* `base64` +* `cat` +* `chmod` +* `cp` +* `find` +* `gzip` +* `ls` +* `mkdir` +* `mktemp` +* `mv` +* `rm` +* `shasum` +* `tar` +* `touch` +* `xargs` + +## How we made this possible + +This was made possible via a collaboration with the maintainers of other Go +projects. + +### u-root/u-root + +We are using the core utilities implementations in Go from the +[u-root][u-root] project. It wasn't as simple as it sounds because they have +originally implemented every core util as a standalone `main` package, which +means we couldn't just import and use them as libraries. We had some discussion +and we agreed on a common [interface][uroot-interface] and +[base implementation][uroot-base]. Then, I refactored one-by-one of the core +utils in the list above. This is the reason we don't have all of them: there are +too many! But the good news is that we can refactor more with time and include +them in Task. + +### mvdan/sh + +The other collaboration was with the maintainer of the shell interpreter. +He agreed on having [an official middleware][middleware] to expose these core +utilities. +This means that other projects that use the shell interpreter can also benefit +from this work, and as more utilities are included, those projects will benefit +as well. + +## Can I choose whether to use them or not? + +Yes. We added a new environment variable called +[`TASK_CORE_UTILS`][task-core-utils] to control if the Go implementations are +used or not. By default, this is `true` on Windows and `false` on other +platforms. You can override it like this: + +```bash +# Enable, even on non-Windows platforms +env TASK_CORE_UTILS=1 task ... + +# Disable, even on Windows +env TASK_CORE_UTILS=0 task ... +``` + +We'll consider making this enabled by default on all platforms in the future. +In the meantime, we're still using the system core utils on non-Windows +platforms to avoid regressions as the Go implementations may not be 100% +compatible with the system ones. + +## Feedback + +If you have any feedback about this feature, join our [Discord server][discord] +or [open an issue][gh-issue] on GitHub. + +Also, if Task is useful for you or your company, consider +[sponsoring the project][sponsor]! + +[mvdan]: https://github.com/mvdan/sh +[mvdan-prs]: https://github.com/mvdan/sh/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author%3Aandreynering+is%3Aclosed+sort%3Acreated-asc +[u-root]: https://github.com/u-root/u-root +[uroot-interface]: https://github.com/u-root/u-root/blob/main/pkg/core/command.go +[uroot-base]: https://github.com/u-root/u-root/blob/main/pkg/core/base.go +[middleware]: https://github.com/mvdan/sh/blob/master/moreinterp/coreutils/coreutils.go +[task-core-utils]: /docs/reference/environment#task-core-utils +[discord]: https://discord.com/invite/6TY36E39UK +[gh-issue]: https://github.com/go-task/task/issues +[sponsor]: /donate