API Documentation for 0.9.1

Gue

Gue (pronounced goo) is a task runner for node. Rather than relying on plugins Gue provides a built in way to easily run shell commands. Gue also provides automatic watching using the fileSets feature.

Installation

You can install gue globally with npm install -g gue and/or locally with npm install -D gue. If installed in both places the global gue will automatically use the locally installed gue (courtesy of liftoff).

Gue is developed using yarn so you can use yarn rather than npm to install.

Usage

When you run gue it looks for guefile.js at the top level of your project directory. The guefile is a module that contains your task definitions and fileSets.

CLI Example

# run the task named 'default' 
% gue
 
# Run the coverage task 
% gue coverage
 
# Run the coverage task and the lint task 
# These tasks will start at the same time 
% gue coverage lint
 
# List the tasks defined in guefile.js 
% gue -l
 
# Specify an alternate config 
% gue --config=foo.js

Example guefile.js

const gue = require('gue');
fileSet = gue.fileSet;
 
fileSet.add('allSrc', '**/*.js', 'lint');
fileSet.add('src', ['*.js','lib/*.js','bin/*.js'], 'test');
fileSet.add('unitTests', 'test/**/*.test.js', 'test');
 
// Run lint and test if no other tasks are specified
gue.task('default', ['lint','test']);
 
// Magic watching!
// Run the tasks for each fileSet whose glob matches the changed file
// the tasklist is de-duped
gue.task('watch', () =>{
  gue.smartWatch(fileSet);
});
 
// Run unit tests and capture code coverage
gue.task('test', () => {
  return gue.shell('nyc --reporter lcov --reporter text ' +
  'mocha ' + fileSet.getFiles('unitTests'));
});
 
// Run the linter
gue.task('lint', () => {
  return gue.shell('jscs ' + fileSet.getFiles('allSrc'));
});

Tasks

Tasks define the actions you want to perform. A task consists of:

• a name
• an optional list of dependencies to run before running this task
• an optional function that is the code to be executed
• you must provide a dependency list or a function

Notes:

• Dependencies will execute in the order that they are listed

Task examples

 
// if % gue is run without any arguments, run a and b tasks
gue.task('default', ['a']);
 
gue.task('a', ['b'], ()=>{
  return promiseMethod(args);
})
 
gue.task('b', () =>{
  return new Promise((resolve, reject)=>{
    setTimeout(resolve, 10);
  })
})

File Sets

File sets are a way to name a set of files that can be used in tasks. File sets also let you associate a task with the list of files so that smartWatch knows what task to run when a file changes. File sets let you think in terms of what needs to happen when a file changes, rather than just focusing on tasks. They can help minimize task dependencies for convenience and use task dependencies for actual dependencies.

File sets are defined with a name, a list of globs, and an optional task name to execute if a file change is detected by smartWatch. The globs are processed with multimatch.

The FileSet object provides two methods that can be called in your task actions.

• fileSet.getGlobs(setName) returns the globs that you specified. This is preferred to getFiles as you can overflow the shell command line length if your glob matches many files.
• fileSet.getFiles(setName) returns a list of every file that matches the glob provided in the fileSet. This may be preferable as multimatch can be more expressive than normal shell globs

Notes

• node_modules and coverage directories are automatically excluded from all globs

File Set Example

const gue = require('gue');
const fileSet = gue.fileSet;
 
fileSet.add('allSrc', ['**/*.js'], 'lint');
fileSet.add('libs', ['lib/**/*.js'], 'test');
fileSet.add('src', ['src/**/*.js', 'index.js'], 'test');
 
gue.task('watch', ()=>{
  gue.smartWatch(fileSet);
})
 
// When using smartWatch the linter will run on any .js change
gue.task('lint', () =>{
    return gue.shell('jscs ' + fileSet.getFiles('allSrc'));
});
 
// We generally want our linter to run with the tests, but it's not a
// true dependency. Rather than making test depend on lint, we'll let
// the fileSet match take care of linting for us
gue.task('test', () => {
  return gue.shell('nyc --reporter lcov --reporter text ' +
      'mocha {{globs "unitTests"}}'));
});

Shell Commands

Gue provides support for shell commands that work well with FileSets. Shell commands are executed with execa.shell. The command string is a handlebars template. There are two built in helpers {{globs "name"}} and {{files "name"}} that match fileSet.getFiles('name') and fileSet.getGlobs('name'). This allows the guefile to centrally define sets of files that are automatically reflected in the relevant shell commands.

Notes

• [project directory]/node_modules/bin is automatically added to $PATH. [project directory] is the directory that contains the guefile
• gue.shell() prints stdout and stderr (in red)
• gue.silentShell() suppresses printing

Shell command example

gue.fileSet.add('exampleSet', ['README.*']);
 
// README.md
gue.shell('echo {{files "exampleSet"}}');
 
// README.*
gue.shell('echo {{globs "exampleSet"}}');
 
// woot
gue.shell('echo {{myString}}', {myString: 'woot'});

Smart Watch

Smart watch works like a regular watch but works with file sets to determine which task(s) to run when a file changes. When you define a file set you can provide an optional task name, the task is executed by smart watch when a file that matches the fileset changes

Notes

• The task(s) for each different file set run in parallel
• The task(s) in a given file set run in the order they are defined

smartWatch example

 
 
// Run the linter when any of our source files change
gue.fileSet.add('allSrc', ['**/*.js'], 'lint');
 
// Run tests whenever any of our test files change
gue.fileSet.add('tests', ['test/**/*.test.js'], 'test');
 
// the smartWatch task
gue.task('watch', ()=>{
  return gue.smartWatch(fileSet);
});
 
gue.task('lint', ()=>{
  return gue.shell('eslint {{globs "allSrc"}}');
});
 
gue.task('test', () =>{
  return gue.shell('mocha {{globs "tests"}}');
});