imake

imake

An interactive make companion, two tools in one binary:

• imake — a TUI that lists your Makefile targets; pick one and run it.
• imake <group> — a k9s-inspired task runner: define named command groups in imake.yml, run them concurrently, watch their logs side by side, and click or press Enter to drop into any task's shell.

Install

Quick install — one script for macOS, Linux, and Windows (Git Bash), no Go needed:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gshireesh/imake/main/install.sh | sh

On Windows it installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\imake and adds it to your user PATH; native PowerShell users can use instead:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gshireesh/imake/main/install.ps1 | iex

Windows tasks run through cmd.exe on ConPTY. Prebuilt binaries cover macOS, Linux and Windows on amd64 and arm64.

With Go: go install github.com/gshireesh/imake/cmd/imake@latest · from a checkout: make install.

Once installed, imake -u (or --update) self-updates to the latest release, imake -v prints the version, and imake -h shows usage. The TUI also checks for a new release in the background (at most once a day) and downloads it quietly — the header shows a restart hint and the next launch runs the new version. Set IMAKE_NO_AUTOUPDATE=1 to disable.

Task runner

Create an imake.yml (or imake.yaml) describing named command groups. A task is either a plain command string or an object with lifecycle hooks:

dev:
  ui: cd discover && pnpm dev
  backend:
    command: cd backend && go run cmd/main.go
    before: echo "starting backend..."
    timeout: 10000            # ms; kills the command if it runs longer
    on_timeout: echo "timed out"
    on_error: echo "failed"
    on_success: echo "ok"
    after: echo "done"
    restart_policy: on-failure  # always | on-failure | never (default)
    keep_shell: true            # drop into an interactive shell after the command

Then run the group:

imake dev

Each task runs on its own pty behind a real terminal emulator (midterm), so full-screen child TUIs — turbo, vite, vim, htop, fancy shell prompts — render correctly instead of turning into escape-code soup. The left panel lists tasks with live status (● running, ❯ interactive shell, ✓ ok, ✗ failed, ■ stopped); the right panel shows the selected task's live screen. Scrolling up switches the pane to a line-based history buffer (copy mode); b or scrolling to the bottom returns to the live screen.

Keys & mouse

With keep_shell: true the task ends in a real interactive shell ($SHELL), so attaching gives you a prompt in that task's context — handy for rerunning dev servers, inspecting state, or poking at a failed build.

Lifecycle

Per run, a task executes: before → command (with optional timeout) → on_success/on_error/on_timeout → after → optional keep_shell shell. restart_policy: always reruns the cycle when it ends; on-failure reruns only after a failure or timeout.

Tasks sharing a group are shown under a collapsible ▾ group header, and tasks are nested under the dependency they wait for with tree connectors (├──/└──), so the sidebar reads like tree output.

Tasks with manual: true show as ▷ and wait until you press r. Tasks with depends_on show as ◌ and start automatically once every dependency has finished with success (manual tasks always need r). Dependency cycles and unknown names are rejected at startup.

Plain mode

imake -p <group> skips the TUI and streams all tasks with name-prefixed output — useful for CI logs. Lifecycle hooks other than command are ignored in plain mode.

See examples/simple, examples/lifecycle, examples/manual and examples/grouped for configs.

More demos

Attach to a task's shell — a manual task with keep_shell, started with r, then real commands typed straight into it:

Search everywhere — / filters the task list from the sidebar and log lines from log mode, k9s-style, with the prompt inside the panel being searched:

Groups, dependencies and manual tasks — collapsible ▾ group headers, tree-style dependency nesting, and ▷ manual tasks started on demand:

Viewing modes — LOG MODE and ATTACHED badges, f fullscreen, w wrap toggle, c copy to clipboard, q stop and r fresh restart:

Group picker and Makefile browser — bare imake picks a group interactively; imake . browses Makefile targets:

Bare imake

With an imake.yml present, bare imake opens a group picker — arrow keys or click, Enter opens the group's task TUI — so nobody has to remember group names (a single-group config opens directly; piped output prints the plain list). Without one, a Makefile opens the target browser.

Makefile TUI

Run imake . (or bare imake when only a Makefile exists): arrow keys to select a target, Enter to run it, Ctrl-C to quit. Target docs (text after ##) show in the help pane.

Release flow

New tags publish as pre-releases: artifacts exist for testing, but auto-update, imake -u and the install scripts only serve the release marked latest. After verifying a build, promote it:

make promote TAG=vX.Y.Z   # or: GitHub → release → uncheck "pre-release", set as latest

Rollback works the same way — mark an older release as latest and updaters converge back to it.

Debugging

Set IMAKE_DEBUG=/tmp/imake.log to write key/message traces while the task runner TUI is open.