toolset

Toolset

toolset is a lightweight utility for managing project-specific tools like linters, formatters, and code generators. It ensures that your development tools remain up-to-date and allows you to specify exact tool versions for consistent, reproducible builds.

Key Features

• Centralized Tool Management: Easily manage and update tools like linters, formatters, and code generators within your project.
• Reproducible Builds: Ensure consistent results by locking tool versions in your project configuration.
• Automatic Updates: Keep your tools up-to-date with a single command, avoiding manual version checks and upgrades.
• Multiple Runtimes: Support for both Go builds and GitHub releases. Use the gh runtime to install pre-built binaries from GitHub releases (like golangci-lint) for significantly faster installation compared to building from source.

Use Cases

When developing software, you often rely on various tools—such as linters, formatters, and test runners—that are critical for maintaining code quality. These tools are frequently updated with new features or fixes. To maintain stability and ensure that everyone working on the project uses the same toolset, you need a way to lock in specific tool versions.

This is where toolset comes in:

• Version Management: Specify exact tool versions to avoid breaking changes during updates.
• Easy Upgrades: When you're ready, upgrade all tools to their latest versions with a single command.
• Reproducibility: Enable consistent behavior across machines, making builds and code checks more reliable.

Installation

You can install toolset using either Go or Homebrew:

Option 1: Go Install

go install github.com/kazhuravlev/toolset/cmd/toolset@latest

Option 2: Homebrew

brew install kazhuravlev/toolset/toolset

Usage

toolset allows you to initialize a configuration, add tools, install specific versions, and run or upgrade them. Below are the basic commands:

Initialize Toolset

Create a toolset.json configuration file in the specified directory:

# Init an empty project
toolset init .
# ...or from existing one.
toolset init --copy-from git+https://gist.github.com/3f16049ce3f9f478e6b917237b2c0d88.git:/sample-toolset.json

Add Tools

toolset supports multiple runtimes for installing tools. Use go runtime to build from source, or gh runtime to download pre-built binaries from GitHub releases (faster for tools like golangci-lint).

Direct tools

Explicitly add tool to your configuration. They have an priority on top of includes.

# Add using Go runtime (builds from source)
toolset add go github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/cmd/golangci-lint@v1.60.2
# Add the latest version (automatically resolves to the most recent version)
toolset add go github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/cmd/golangci-lint@latest

# Add using GitHub releases runtime (downloads pre-built binary - faster!)
toolset add gh golangci/golangci-lint@v1.61.0

Copy from source

When you bootstrap a new repository and want to have a copy of the .toolset.json file from an existing repository.

# ... from local file
toolset add --copy-from path/to/another/.toolset.json
# ... from remote http
toolset add --copy-from https://gist.githubusercontent.com/kazhuravlev/3f16049ce3f9f478e6b917237b2c0d88/raw/44a2ea7d2817e77e2cd90f29343788c864d36567/sample-toolset.json
# ... from git repo (by ssh)
toolset add --copy-from git+ssh://git@gist.github.com:3f16049ce3f9f478e6b917237b2c0d88.git:/sample-toolset.json
# ... from git repo (by https)
toolset add --copy-from git+https://gist.github.com/3f16049ce3f9f478e6b917237b2c0d88.git:/sample-toolset.json

Include source

The included source will be explicitly registered. This URL will be added to your .toolset.json file.

# ... from local file
toolset add --include /path/to/.toolset.json
# ... from remote http
toolset add --include https://gist.githubusercontent.com/kazhuravlev/3f16049ce3f9f478e6b917237b2c0d88/raw/44a2ea7d2817e77e2cd90f29343788c864d36567/sample-toolset.json
# ... from git repo (by ssh)
toolset add --include git+ssh://git@gist.github.com:3f16049ce3f9f478e6b917237b2c0d88.git
# ... from git repo (by https)
toolset add --include git+https://gist.github.com/3f16049ce3f9f478e6b917237b2c0d88.git

Add tags to tools

Add one or more tags to each tool. It will allow you to install only selected tools. Tools that have a tag can be filtered in toolset sync and toolset upgrade. See the docs bellow.

# Add linter to group `linters` and `ci`
toolset add --tags linters,ci go github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/cmd/golangci-lint
# Add tools to group `ci`
toolset add --tags ci go github.com/jstemmer/go-junit-report/v2@latest
toolset add --tags ci go github.com/boumenot/gocover-cobertura

Add tools from GitHub Releases (gh runtime)

Important Feature: toolset supports installing tools directly from GitHub releases using the gh runtime. This is particularly useful for tools like golangci-lint that provide pre-built binaries, making installation much faster than building from source.

# Install golangci-lint from GitHub releases (much faster than building from source)
toolset add gh golangci/golangci-lint@v1.61.0
toolset sync

# Run the tool
toolset run golangci-lint version

# Upgrade to a newer release
toolset upgrade golangci-lint

The gh runtime downloads pre-compiled binaries from GitHub releases, which is significantly faster than the go runtime that builds from source. This is especially beneficial for large tools like golangci-lint.

Authentication: For private repositories or to avoid rate limits, set GITHUB_TOKEN or TOOLSET_GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable:

export GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_your_token_here
toolset add gh owner/private-repo@v1.0.0

Use specific golang version

In order to install tool with concrete golang version:

# Add a new runtime (it will installed at the moment)
toolset runtime add go@1.22.10
# Check that it was added
toolset runtime list

And install tool with specific version:

toolset add go@1.22.10 github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/cmd/golangci-lint@v1.59.0
toolset sync
toolset list

Install tools

Ensure all specified tools are installed or updated to the defined versions:

# Make sure that all tools installed with a correct version.
toolset sync
# ...do it only for some set of tools
toolset sync --tags linters

By default, tools are installed into ~/.cache/toolset.

Run a tool

Execute any installed tool with its corresponding arguments. For example, to run golangci-lint:

toolset run golangci-lint run --fix ./...

Upgrade tools

To upgrade all tools to their latest available versions, run:

# Upgrade all tools
toolset upgrade
# Upgrade only specific tools
toolset upgrade --tags ci

This command ensures all tools in your toolset.json configuration are updated to the latest version.

Get an absolute path to installed tool

To get an abs path to installed tool you can just use a toolset which:

# Install some tool. For example - goimports
toolset add go golang.org/x/tools/cmd/goimports
toolset sync
# Get an abs path to installed tool
toolset which goimports

This command returns an abs path to goimports like that:

/Users/username/.cache/toolset/go1.23/.goimports___v0.21.0/goimports

Remove installed tool

You can use toolset remove in very similar order like toolset add or toolset run. This operation will remove requested binaries and some meta info.

# Install some tool. For example - goimports
toolset add go golang.org/x/tools/cmd/goimports
toolset sync
# Remove tool by calling
toolset remove goimports

Examples

Here’s an example of a directory with the toolset. To try it out, follow these steps:

Install the toolset and run:

git clone git@github.com:kazhuravlev/toolset.git
cd toolset/example
# Install all tools
toolset sync
# ... and check installed tools
ls ~/.cache/toolset
# Run installed tool
toolset run gt --repo ../ tag last
# List installed tools
toolset list
# List installed tools that was never used
toolset list --unused

Supported Runtimes

toolset supports multiple runtime environments for installing tools:

Go Runtime (go)

Builds tools from Go source code. Supports any Go module that can be built with go install.

toolset add go github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/cmd/golangci-lint@v1.61.0
toolset add go golang.org/x/tools/cmd/goimports@latest

Advantages:

• Works with any Go module
• Can use specific Go versions for building
• Full source code compilation

Disadvantages:

• Slower installation (needs to compile from source)

GitHub Releases Runtime (gh)

Downloads pre-built binaries directly from GitHub releases.

toolset add gh golangci/golangci-lint@v1.61.0
toolset add gh owner/repository@v2.5.0

Advantages:

• Much faster installation (downloads pre-compiled binaries)
• No compilation required
• Perfect for large tools like golangci-lint

Disadvantages:

• Only works with projects that publish release binaries
• Requires consistent release naming conventions

When to use which:

• Use gh for tools that provide pre-built binaries (faster)
• Use go for tools without releases or when you need specific Go versions

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to open issues or submit pull requests to improve toolset.

Questions and Answers

Which files should be added into git index?

• .toolset.json should be added into git index. This is like go.mod or package.json.
• .toolset.lock.json should be added into git index. This is like go.sum or another lock files.

Is that possible to change directory that contains a binary files?

Yes. You can change it in your .toolset.json.

I have a strange behaviour. What I should do to fix that?

Main command - toolset sync. This should fix the all problems. In case when it is not fixed - create an issue.

Where toolset store tools?

All tools and stats file stored into ~/.cache/toolset directory. You can delete this directory any time. Toolset will download necessary tools at the next run.

How to change directory where tools stored?

Just export variable like that export TOOLSET_CACHE_DIR=/tmp/some-directory.

How to change directory where .toolset.json and .toolset.lock.json stored?

Just export variable like that export TOOLSET_SPEC_DIR=.some/directory. Toolset will try to find spec files into this dir.

How do I use GitHub authentication for the gh runtime?

Set the GITHUB_TOKEN or TOOLSET_GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable with your GitHub personal access token. This is useful for:

• Accessing private repositories
• Avoiding GitHub API rate limits
• CI/CD environments

export GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_your_token_here
toolset add gh owner/private-repo@v1.0.0

What environment variables does toolset support?

• TOOLSET_CACHE_DIR - Change where tools are stored (default: ~/.cache/toolset)
• TOOLSET_SPEC_DIR - Change where .toolset.json and .toolset.lock.json are located
• GITHUB_TOKEN or TOOLSET_GITHUB_TOKEN - GitHub authentication for the gh runtime