Running all commands in a group

[GitToby]

I am looking to be able to (using the smart resolution) run all commands in a specific group. The context is that I'd like to put just into my git-hooks flow:

install-hooks:
    echo "just --run-group=hook:pre-commit" >> .git/hooks/pre-commit
    chmod +x .git/hooks/pre-commit

[group("hook:pre-commit")]
[working-directory: 'infra']
lint-infra:
    tofu validate
    tofu fmt
    
[group("hook:pre-commit")]
[working-directory: 'frontend']
lint-javascript:
    tofu validate
    tofu fmt

the current blocker to PoC this on my workflow is the just --run-group=hook:pre-commit command. I cant see anything in the docs which lets me do this as gracefully. Im aware I could just put everything into 1 command like the below.

pre-commit: lint-infra lint-javascript
    echo 1

The install-hooks command is a bit flakey but this could potentially be extended to be any hook and have a built-in command to install the right files.

(I would be keen on learning Rust to implement this myself if there's enough interest)

[casey]

Can you create a recipe with those members as a dependency? Like so:

install-hooks: lint-infra lint-javascript

[GitToby]

that's what I'm currently doing, as I write above I've got just pre-commit as the hook script which runs the dependencies. It's just slightly less elegant than defining a group and running that. Having them as a group would also improve the documentation of the repo imo.

[casey]

There currently isn't a way to do this, and I could see adding it somehow.

just group:NAMEandjust --group NAMEare both options. Which would behave as if the recipes in the group with nameNAME` were all given on the command line.

[GitToby]

yeah, that was my thinking for how it would work too.

just --group <group-name>

(or whatever syntax seems nice) would be like constructing a pseudo-command for the group which can be run with whatever syntax makes the most sense. It would allow the group tag to be applicable for more than just documenting commands and --list.

group-name: <cmds in group in just file ordering>

so for the example above

[group("pre-commit")]
[working-directory: 'infra']
lint-infra:
    tofu validate
    tofu fmt
    
[group("pre-commit")]
[working-directory: 'frontend']
lint-javascript:
    tofu validate
    tofu fmt

would create a pseudo-command

pre_commit: lint-infra lint-javascript

tbh being a not-rust dev the implementation might be a large bite for me; let me fork the repo and see if I can come up with something over the weekend 😄

[aboisvert]

Thinking out loud, I'm wondering if instead it would be better to support some sort of globbing of task names on the command-line, something like

% just "lint-*"

and/or,

# Justfile
pre_commit:  lint-*

which would run all tasks with a lint- prefix.

[aboisvert]

On different train of thought, running groups or sets of tasks seems to be a slippery slope as it begs for the definition of execution ordering, and sooner or later wanting to run tasks in parallel, which I'd argue might be best handled by defining explicit ordering (task dependencies), and/or using the parallel unix tool or some other.