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 (macOS and Linux, no Go needed):

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

Windows (PowerShell) — installs and adds imake to your PATH:

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

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.

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 triggers: manual 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.

Makefile TUI

Run imake with no arguments in a directory containing a Makefile: arrow keys to select a target, Enter to run it, Ctrl-C to quit. Target docs (text after ##) show in the help pane.

Debugging

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