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Alex Voste
Alex Voste

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I built a build tool in Go — and now I'm slowly rewriting pieces in Rust (fz 1.9.0 release)

#go #rust #buildsystem #opensource

So I've been solo-building fz — a fast, opinionated build tool for C/ASM projects written in Go. No Makefile hell, no CMake nightmares. Just a single binary that figures out your toolchain and gets out of the way.

Today I shipped 1.9.0 (and a quick 1.9.2 patch). Here's what changed — and why I started poking at Rust.

What's new in 1.9.0

Cross-compilation with -target <triple> 

fz -target arm-linux-gnueabihf
fz -target riscv64-linux-gnu
fz -target x86_64-w64-mingw32
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fz now auto-selects the right compiler, assembler, and linker for the target triple. ARM, RISC-V, x86_64, i386 — all supported out of the box.

Static libraries: -type static / -lib 

fz -type static -lib mylib
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Builds .a archives from object files via ar. Previously you had to wire this up yourself. Now it's a one-liner.

LSP support: compile_commands.json 

fz -compile-commands
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Generates compile_commands.json for clangd and any other LSP client. Finally get autocomplete and go-to-definition in your editor without configuring anything manually.

Other improvements

  • fz -shell now handles both single files and full directories
  • Fixed a long-standing bug where hello.asm and hello.s would produce conflicting object file names
  • Linker test coverage: 17% → 60% 🎉
  • Squashed dozens of golangci-lint warnings

1.9.2 patch — the boring-but-important stuff

Cleaned up every errcheck, govet, and ineffassign warning across the codebase:

  • Proper error handling for json.Encode, os.Rename, os.Chmod, storeCache
  • Error checks in tests: os.Chdir, os.MkdirAll, os.Create, buf.ReadFrom
  • Fixed an empty branch in builder_test.go and a wrong printf format
  • Updated go.mod / go.sum

Nothing glamorous, but the kind of hygiene that prevents weird bugs six months from now.

The Rust experiment: rustcache

⚠️ This lives in a separate branch and is not part of the release. Yet.

I've been curious about Rust FFI for a while, so I decided to try moving the caching layer — file hashing and copying — into a Rust static library.

Here's what I've built so far in rustcache/:

// SHA256 of a file, returned as a hex string over FFI
#[no_mangle]
pub extern "C" fn rust_hash_file(path: *const c_char) -> *mut c_char { ... }

// Simple file copy via std::fs::copy
#[no_mangle]
pub extern "C" fn rust_copy_file(src: *const c_char, dst: *const c_char) -> i32 { ... }
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5 unit tests, all passing. Builds into librustcache.a.

The plan

Once I wire it into Go via cgo and build tags:

//go:build rustcache

// #cgo LDFLAGS: -L./rustcache/target/release -lrustcache
// #include "rustcache.h"
import "C"
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...users will be able to opt in with -tags rustcache and I'll benchmark both paths. If the Rust version is meaningfully faster, it becomes the default.

For now: zero impact on existing fz users. The Go cache path is unchanged.

What's next

  • [ ] Finish the Rust → Go integration (cgo, build tags, benchmarks)
  • [ ] Dynamic library support (.so / .dylib)
  • [ ] Colored error and warning output
  • [ ] Remote cache (S3 / MinIO) for CI/CD speedups

If you're building C or ASM projects and tired of Makefile archaeology, give fz a try. Issues and PRs welcome — it's a solo project and I read everything.

Docs and install: https://github.com/forgezero-cli/forgezero

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