buildl

A sandboxed, deterministic build system whose build files are written in Lua and evaluated on the airsl embedded runtime.

Build files only declare targets: what each reads, what it makes, which command makes it. The buildl program, written in Rust, then works out what is out of date, runs those commands in parallel, each in a sandbox, and caches what they produce. The rule underneath is airsl's: nothing is ambient. A build cannot run a program, read a file or see an environment variable unless it was declared and the workspace allowed it. buildl is pre-release.

• Build files are safe to read: evaluating them grants them nothing.
• Rebuilds you can explain: buildl plan tells you what would rebuild, and why.
• Authority you can see: what a build may touch is checked against a limit before anything runs.

build.lua, from examples/python:

local b = buildl

local app = b.sources("app/*.py")

-- zipapp packs the app directory into one runnable archive, out/app.pyz.
b.target("app.pyz", {
  inputs = { app },
  run = { "python3", "-m", "zipapp", "app", "-o", "$out" },
})

b.test("unit", {
  inputs = { app, b.sources("tests/*.py") },
  run = { "python3", "-m", "unittest", "discover", "-s", "tests" },
})

Its buildl.toml sets the workspace's ceiling: here, python3 is the one program any build may run.

buildl runs on Linux and macOS.

curl -LsSf https://airsstack.github.io/buildl/install.sh | sh                  # prebuilt, latest release
cargo install --locked buildl-cli                                              # from crates.io
cargo install --git https://github.com/airsstack/buildl buildl-cli --locked   # from GitHub
cargo make install                                                            # from a checkout

The first line installs a prebuilt buildl into ~/.local/bin. The others build it with Cargo.

Then buildl build, buildl test and buildl plan in that example.

To have an AI agent write and migrate build files, install buildl, airsl (a program already on your PATH is skipped) and the buildl and buildl-migrate skills in one go. install.sh installs the prebuilt buildl and airsl, so it needs no Rust unless you run it from a clone or with a --ref other than main; --dir P copies the skills into P for another agent instead:

curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/airsstack/buildl/main/skills/install.sh
sh install.sh --claude

The buildl Book is the full guide.

Apache-2.0. buildl is part of the airsstack ecosystem.