Shell Recipes¶

The shell type is the universal recipe — runs any shell command.

Quick start¶

Create a project with shell recipes for building, testing, and cleaning a C program:

# Mustfile.toml
[project]
name = "hello"
version = "0.1.0"

[recipe.build]
type    = "shell"
inputs  = ["src/hello.c"]
outputs = ["build/hello"]
script  = "mkdir -p build && gcc -o build/hello src/hello.c"

[recipe.test]
type   = "shell"
deps   = ["build"]
phony  = true
script = "test \"$(./build/hello)\" = \"hello\""

[recipe.clean]
type   = "shell"
phony  = true
script = "rm -rf build"

/* src/hello.c */
#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    printf("hello\n");
    return 0;
}

$ must build test
✓ [#################] 1/1 (starting...)
  ✓ build
  ✓ test
2 built, 0 cached, 0 failed — 120ms

Try it¶

Basic usage¶

[recipe.build]
type   = "shell"
script = "gcc -o app main.c"
inputs = ["main.c"]
outputs = ["app"]

Caching¶

Shell recipes default to mtime caching — re-run when input files change.

Opt into content-hash caching¶

[recipe.proto]
type   = "shell"
cache  = "hash"
inputs = ["proto/**/*.proto"]
script = "protoc --rust_out=src proto/*.proto"

Always re-run (phony)¶

[recipe.clean]
type   = "shell"
phony  = true
script = "cargo clean && rm -rf dist/"

All fields¶

Field	Type	Description
`type`	`"shell"`	Required
`script`	string	Shell command to execute
`inputs`	string[]	Input file globs (for cache hashing)
`outputs`	string[]	Output file paths
`deps`	string[]	Dependencies
`env`	map	Environment variables
`phony`	bool	Always re-run
`cache`	`"hash"` / `"mtime"` / `"none"`	Caching strategy
`script_win`	string	Windows override for `script`
`scripts`	map	Per-OS script overrides (e.g., `macos`, `linux`, `linux.ubuntu`, `win`)

Working directory¶

Shell commands execute in the project root directory (where Mustfile.toml is located), regardless of where you run must from.

Glob expansion¶

inputs supports glob patterns:

inputs = ["src/**/*.rs", "Cargo.toml"]

Cross-platform¶

must uses sh -c on Unix and cmd /C on Windows for shell recipe execution. Use script_win to provide a Windows-specific override:

[recipe.clean]
type   = "shell"
phony  = true
script     = "rm -rf build"
script_win = "rmdir /s /q build"

See Cross-Platform Scripts for the full guide.

Examples¶

[recipe.build]
type    = "shell"
inputs  = ["src/**/*.c"]
outputs = ["build/libcore.a"]
script  = "make -C src all"

[release.clean]
type   = "shell"
phony  = true
script = "rm -rf build/ dist/"

[recipe.integration]
type   = "shell"
deps   = ["build"]
phony  = true
env    = { SLOW_TESTS = "1" }
script = "./scripts/integration-test.sh"