Skip to content

Makefile: allow building without the web UI via WEBUI=0 #1675

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Closed
Yi-111-a wants to merge 2 commits into from
Closed

Makefile: allow building without the web UI via WEBUI=0 #1675

Show file tree
Hide file tree
Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
2 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
aa8a40b
//:Makefile: allow building without the web UI via WEBUI=0
neelanshi-d Oct 9, 2026
c59515a
Makefile: assign WEBUI_DEP= so 'all' stays the default target
neelanshi-d Oct 9, 2026
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
27 changes: 27 additions & 0 deletions INSTALLATION.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ and verify your installation.
- [MacOS](#macos)
- [Windows](#windows)
- [Build from source](#build-from-source)
- [Building without the web UI](#building-without-the-web-ui)
- [Verify your installation](#verify-your-installation)

<!-- mdformat-toc end -->
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -210,6 +211,10 @@ dependencies:
- `git`
- `go`
- `make`
- [Node.js][node] and [pnpm][pnpm], but only for the default build, which
compiles the web UI in. See
[building without the web UI](#building-without-the-web-ui) below to skip
both.

Ensure that the `go` binary directory (`$GOPATH/bin`) is in your `PATH`. It is
recommended to set this within your shell configuration file(s), such as
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -325,6 +330,26 @@ This will build <code>git-bug</code> and place it in your Go binary directory.

</details>

## Building without the web UI<a name="building-without-the-web-ui"></a>

The default `build`, `install` and `build/debug` targets compile the web UI in,
which requires a Node.js and `pnpm` toolchain. If you don't need the web UI --
on a minimal system, or when cross-compiling -- pass `WEBUI=0` to skip that
toolchain entirely:

<pre>
make install WEBUI=0
</pre>

The resulting binary behaves identically apart from `git-bug webui`, which
reports that it was built without the web UI and how to get one that has it.
Plain `go build` and `go install` already produce such a binary; `WEBUI=0` just
avoids requiring the frontend toolchain to get there.

> [!TIP]
> Official releases always include the web UI. Build with the default targets
> if you want parity with them.

## Verify your installation<a name="verify-your-installation"></a>

To verify that `git-bug` was installed correctly, you can run the following
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -374,9 +399,11 @@ ______________________________________________________________________
[brew.sh]: https://brew.sh
[cosign]: https://docs.sigstore.dev/cosign/system_config/installation/
[docs/home]: ./doc
[node]: https://nodejs.org
[p/arch-repo]: https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/git-bug/
[p/aur]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/git-bug-bin
[p/nix]: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixos-unstable/pkgs/applications/version-management/git-bug/default.nix
[pnpm]: https://pnpm.io
[pkg/linux_amd64.apk]: https://github.com/git-bug/git-bug/releases/download/v0.11.0/git-bug_0.11.0_linux_amd64.apk
[pkg/linux_amd64.arch]: https://github.com/git-bug/git-bug/releases/download/v0.11.0/git-bug_0.11.0_linux_amd64.pkg.tar.zst
[pkg/linux_amd64.deb]: https://github.com/git-bug/git-bug/releases/download/v0.11.0/git-bug_0.11.0_linux_amd64.deb
Expand Down
24 changes: 18 additions & 6 deletions Makefile
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -7,27 +7,39 @@ endif
TAG:=$(shell git describe --tags --match 'v*' --always --dirty --broken)
LDFLAGS:=-X main.version="${TAG}"

# Set WEBUI=0 to build without the web UI, which spares you a Node.js/pnpm
# toolchain entirely. The resulting binary simply has none compiled in:
# `git-bug webui` then refuses to run and says so (see //webui:assets_stub.go).
WEBUI?=1
ifeq ($(WEBUI),0)
WEBUI_DEP=
WEBUI_TAG=
else
WEBUI_DEP=build-webui
WEBUI_TAG=-tags webui
endif

all: build

.PHONY: build-webui
build-webui:
cd webui && pnpm install && pnpm run build

.PHONY: build
build: build-webui
build: $(WEBUI_DEP)
go generate
go build -tags webui -ldflags "$(LDFLAGS)" .
go build $(WEBUI_TAG) -ldflags "$(LDFLAGS)" .

# produce a debugger-friendly build
.PHONY: build/debug
build/debug: build-webui
build/debug: $(WEBUI_DEP)
go generate
go build -tags webui -ldflags "$(LDFLAGS)" -gcflags=all="-N -l" .
go build $(WEBUI_TAG) -ldflags "$(LDFLAGS)" -gcflags=all="-N -l" .

.PHONY: install
install: build-webui
install: $(WEBUI_DEP)
go generate
go install -tags webui -ldflags "$(LDFLAGS)" .
go install $(WEBUI_TAG) -ldflags "$(LDFLAGS)" .

.PHONY: secure
secure:
Expand Down