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A simple way to replace npm scripts in Deno

Heiker on May 14, 2020

Update 2022-04-13: Since version 1.20 deno now includes a task runner. You can find the details in the release note: new subcommand deno task. F...

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Khaled Bentoumi • May 15 '20

Thanks for the article, I've been also working on a tool to replace npm scripts in Deno.

It uses YAML and currently supports permissions github.com/BentoumiTech/denox/

Heiker • May 15 '20

Looks really good. I see that it can run a selected file with the permissions, but what about random commands? Is there a plan for that?

Ryan • Jun 15 '20

I was able to use the code from this article and the denox package to create a similar npm feel. If you pass your script in as a string then split the script on the spaces to get your arguments it becomes much more usable.

If Khaled added a logical check on the config file to check if a file or script is being provided I'm sure we could achieve the desired outcome.

async function exec(script: String): Promise<any> {
  const args = script.split(' ');
  const proc = await Deno.run({ cmd: args }).status();

  if(proc.success == false) {
    Deno.exit(proc.code);
  }

  return proc;
}

export default exec;

Ryan • Jun 16 '20

github.com/BentoumiTech/denox/pull/15 I took the liberty to add the functionality you're looking for. Denox is a pretty awesome package so hopefully, this gets picked up.

Heiker • Jun 16 '20

That's awesome. But I'm a little bit worried by this right here: const args = script.split(' ');, it doesn't handle quoted arguments. If you give it something like this

some-cli-tool -m "a message" -m "some other message"

You would get.

["some-cli-tool" "-m", "\"a", "message\"", "-m", "\"some", "other", "message\"" ]

Would Deno.run handle that?

Ryan • Jun 17 '20

That's a great observation. Do you have any suggestions on how to handle this case?

Pacharapol Withayasakpunt • May 15 '20

I think robo is nice. YAML is so much better than JSON, only inferior to real scripts.

Heiker • May 15 '20

It does look nice. I've been using task, it also uses YAML but I think it has more features. But really like how robo handle the arguments for the subcommands.

While on the subject of task runners, a few days ago I saw this one: mask. It uses markdown files to define the options of the subcommands. I haven't use it but it looks really cool.

HAMDAOUI Hamza • May 15 '20 • Edited

Thanks for your Article.
Here's a tutorial on how to make an Alias in PowerShell

Heiker • May 15 '20

Thanks.

I've added the alias example on powershell. I hope I got it right.

Nepali Lab • Jul 8 '20

Yeah, so much true. I was learning Deno and the pain of writing flags for each network or dotenv files burns me up. Was looking for a solution. Thank you for the article.

Kerry Boyko • Mar 18 '21

Hey, I turned Taskfile.js into Taskfile.ts and added some typing info. Let me know what you think.
gist.github.com/brianboyko/735c9d9...

Heiker • Apr 13 '21

It's awesome. May I suggest a "task" to list the other available tasks in the object. I do something like this:

run(Deno.args, {
  start(...args) {
    exec(["deno", "run", entrypoint, ...args]);
  },
  // others tasks....
  list() {
    Object.keys(this).forEach((k) => console.log(k));
  },
});