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https://github.com/pycontribs/mk

mk ease contributing to any open source repository by exposing most common actions you can run. Inspired by make, tox and other cool tools!
https://github.com/pycontribs/mk

cli git mk pep-621 productivity tox

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mk ease contributing to any open source repository by exposing most common actions you can run. Inspired by make, tox and other cool tools!

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README 

        
# Documentation of mk tool



`mk` is a CLI tool that aims to ease contribution and maintenance for projects

by hiding repository implementation details from the casual contributor. With

it, you can contribute without having to know all the build and testing tools

that the project team already uses, which often have strange requirements.



![mk-command-line-screenshot](images/mk-social-preview.png)



If you ever asked yourself one of the below questions, probably you would want

to try `mk` and if it can help you



- How do I run tests locally?

- Which are the test suites I can run?

- Is my change ready to be reviewed?

- How can I propose a change for review?



Run `mk` inside any cloned repository to display which options you have. No

configuration file is needed as the tool will look for common tools used by the

repository and expose their commands.



`mk` is inspired by tools such [make][make], [waf][waf], [taskfile][taskfile],

[tox][tox], [nox][nox], [npm][npm], [yarn][yarn] and [pre-commit][pre-commit],

but **it does not aim to replace them**. Instead, it aims to provide a unified

interface for calling them that is friendly even for those that never used these

tools.



## Installation



We recommend using [`pipx`](https://pipxproject.github.io/pipx/) to install `mk`

to avoid potential dependency conflicts. You can use `pip3 install --user mk` as

well.



```shell

pipx install mk

```



## How it works



`mk` inspects the current core repository and detects build tools used by the

project, like pre-commit, tox, npm and exposes their commands to the user in a

**predictable** way.



For example, you should be able to lint any code repository running only

`mk lint`, regardless of author preference for picking one way to execute them

or another.



Be assured that `mk` does not make use of AI to guess what needs to run. As most

projects use relatively similar patterns, it is easy to identify the one to

execute.



At this moment, if two tools expose the same command name, the tool will add a

number to its name. In the future, we may decide to either chain them under a

single name or allow some tools to shadow others and avoid duplicates.



## What are the main benefits



One of the benefits of `mk` is that it should reduce the amount of

how-to-contribute documentation the author needs to write.



A considerable amount of maintainer effort can go into producing documentation

that makes it easier for someone to contribute.



Some projects are less affected than others. That is usually related to how well

the potential contributors know the practices used by the project. Still, if

your project has a wide range of uses, you will quickly discover that newbie

contributors may hit a knowledge wall. Such a barrier will likely prevent most

of them from becoming active contributors. The remaining ones will flood the

project with questions, distracting other maintainers from doing more advanced

tasks.



Unless you want to deter contributions, you should plan to make it as easy as

possible for people to contribute. That is one area where `mk` aims to help.



## Aliases



Similar to [git aliases](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Git-Aliases),

`mk` allows typing as little as possible by automatically aliasing commands. For

example, you can run `mk lint` just by typing `mk l` as long there is no other

command starting with the same letter. Aliases are available for one, two and

three letters prefixes.



## Using mk to propose changes to projects



Instead of writing a long list of tasks to follow, we can use a tool that tells

him what to do next. For example, `mk` has a built-in command named `up(load)`

that aims to ease preparing a local change from being proposed to the project.



This command detects if it should use GitHub workflow or Gerrit and will run the

appropriate commands for opening or updating a CR/PR. Users will be allowed to

upload a change only after passing the minimal set of local tests, preventing

noisy mistakes or clog CI/CD pipelines.



In addition to linting, it will also check that the repository is not in dirty

status or that the testing did not leave untracked files.



## Planned features



- A persistent state of each command run - This means that it will know if a

  specific command was run and if it failed or not. The state would be linked to

  the repository state, so modifying a tracked file would reset the state to be

  unknown. (#20)

- Configuration file where additional actions can be added. (#21)

- Dependencies between commands. While some tools support dependencies, many do

  not. You should be able to declare that a specific command will run only after

  another one already passed. (#22)

- Ability to generate CI/CD pipelines so the user would spend less time writing

  non-portable configurations. (#23)



[make]: https://www.gnu.org/software/make/

[nox]: https://nox.thea.codes/en/stable/

[npm]: https://www.npmjs.com/

[pre-commit]: https://pre-commit.com/

[taskfile]: https://taskfile.dev/#/

[tox]: https://github.com/tox-dev/tox/

[waf]: https://waf.io/

[yarn]: https://yarnpkg.com/