Dr. Make

The "Dr" stands for Docker

Dr. Make is a Make-like tool that builds general purpose targets by running commands inside isolated Docker containers, allowing you to (a) take advantage of software from pre-built images without needing any build software on your development machine and (b) gain full isolation in the state of a build, allowing you to create more reliable build tools that work the same regardless of the development machine they are run on.

Installing

You can install with Go:

go install github.com/lsegal/drmake/cmd/drmake

Or download pre-built binaries provided in Releases.

Usage

Create a Makefile.phd that executes commands:

FROM alpine AS print_version
LABEL Description="Prints the version that you give it"
ENVARG VERSION
CMD echo "The version is: ${VERSION}"

FROM alpine AS say_hello USING print_version
CMD echo "Wasn't that a nice version or what?"

The above Makefile.phd defines 2 targets, print_version and say_hello. The first accepts an argument VERSION which can be passed via:

drmake print_version -a VERSION=1.2.3

The second target, say_hello, will echo some stuff after print_version, its dependency, runs.

You can list all targets by using drmake -l.

Makefile.phd Syntax

Makefile.phds (also known as Phdfiles, Drfiles, or Drakefiles) look a lot like Dockerfile in that you define multiple FROM blocks each with the AS name suffix to define "targets". These targets are what drmake will execute. That said, Phdfiles also come with a few tiny differences:

FROM image USING dependencies...

You can add USING a b c d to the end of a FROM line to define target dependencies (the target would depend on targets a, b, c, d in that order).

For example:

FROM alpine AS install
RUN apk add -U git

FROM alpine AS clone USING install
RUN git clone git://github.com/lsegal/drmake

FROM golang:1-alpine AS test USING clone
RUN go test .

FROM ./path/to/directory

You can use FROM ./path/to/dir syntax to point to a relative directory that contains a Dockerfile (point at the dir, not the Dockerfile).

FROM #target

You can use FROM #target to copy the Dockerfile instructions from another target:

FROM golang:1-alpine AS base
ENV GOPATH=/root/go

FROM #base AS build_tools
CMD go build ./tools

FROM #base AS build_deps
CMD go build ./deps

FROM &target

This syntax is shorthand for pulling Dockerfile instructions from a directory relative to your workspace inside of .drmake/targets/NAME.

In other words, the following:

FROM &build

Is short-hand for:

FROM ./.drmake/targets/build as build

Note that another benefit of using &target syntax is that you may omit the AS build part of the statement. The target name for both of these lines will be build.

ENVARG ARGUMENT=VALUE

You can use this syntax to quickly define a build argument that is defined as an environment variable for later commands. This is a shortcut for:

ARG ARGUMENT=VALUE
ENV ARGUMENT=${ARGUMENT}

ARTIFACT src dst

You can use this in any target to define an artifact file that should be copied out of the image back to the host volume, for example:

ARTIFACT build/* build/

The above line copies all files inside the build directory of the isolated volume back to the host volume under a build/ directory.

You can copy individual files or directories; semantics work similarly to running cp -R with the src and dst arguments.

TODO

• Support targets sourced from other Git repos (https:// & git://)
• Support lookup paths for target directories via DRMAKE_PATH or -I.
• Better parsing and error messages
• Tests
• Possibly a whole new syntax closer to GitHub Actions?

Copyright & License

DrMake is copyright © 2019 by Loren Segal and licensed under the MIT license.