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Once upon a time, in a realm filled with endless tasks and ever-growing projects, I embarked on a quest to find the perfect tool to help me write scripts — from the simplest commands to more intricate operations. After a long journey, I am delighted to share that I have finally found a solution that meets my needs. Join me on this adventure as I recount my journey and the discoveries I made along the way!

The Requirements

In the beginning, I found myself in need of writing scripts for a variety of tasks. Some scripts were as simple as a few lines, while others grew into more complex challenges. As a warrior who wielded Golang as my primary weapon, I needed a companion that could help me handle various ad-hoc tasks more easily.

At first, I turned to Bash and Makefile, but over time, I grew dissatisfied with them (I’ll explain why in the “What I tried” section). So, I began wandering the vast lands of the inter-web, gathering my needs like precious gems. Here is the list of treasures I sought:

• Cross-Platform Compatibility: I needed a tool that could be used by many adventurers, no matter their chosen operating system. In my team, we work together on many different platforms, so sharing scripts without friction was a major requirement. Bonus points if it could run on Windows without needing the Windows Linux Subsystem (WSL)!
• Powerful CLI Building Primitives: As scripts mature, they grow larger, take more parameters, and evolve into powerful tools within a project. I needed something that could display helpful messages, offer colorful output, and, of course, handle options and arguments with ease.
• An HTTP Client with JSON Support: In the year 2024, almost every script must call upon some distant API. Having built-in support for HTTP requests and JSON handling was a must. Bonus points for YAML support — after all, many CI pipelines and deployment configurations are written in YAML these days.
• An Interpreted Language: I didn’t want my scripts to require a complex compilation process. To me, all the tools that support a project should be simple to run with a single command, without a lengthy build phase getting in the way of adventure.

The Nice-to-Haves

These additional features were like enchanted artifacts — not required, but certainly welcome:

• A Self-Contained Binary of Reasonable Size: I needed a tool that my fellow adventurers could install on their machines without a fuss. If I asked them to download a 200MB monster along with countless dependencies, they would likely resist. So, keeping things simple and small was important.
• Support for a Dependency Tree and Task Execution: Make and Makefile have a powerful feature that allows only the necessary parts to be re-run, saving precious time and effort. I wanted a tool that could define tasks easily and execute them on command.
• Dynamic Language: While I’m not a fan of dynamic languages for building large projects, they offer flexibility and simplicity when scripting. This earned them bonus points in my quest.

This has been a long journey and I am pretty happy with the outcome. Please follow me on this adventure and let me tell you how I found an optimal solution (at least for my needs).

What I Tried

Bash + Makefile

Ah, the trusty old Bash and Makefile — the default choice for many a brave adventurer embarking on a new project. But as I mentioned before, I soon grew dissatisfied with this path. Writing Bash scripts is no simple feat; it's riddled with traps and challenges. Handling strings is a true test of patience, and don’t even get me started on managing arrays or maps!

When it comes to cross-platform compatibility, things get even trickier. You have to rely heavily on gnu-coreutils, which isn't even standard on MacOS. Supporting these scripts across different realms becomes an uphill battle. I quickly realized that this wasn’t the path to the enchanted solution I sought.

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