Aftman

Aftman is a toolchain manager. It enables installing project-specific command line tools and switching between them seamlessly.

$ rojo --version
Rojo 6.2.0

$ cat ~/.aftman/aftman.toml
[tools]
rojo = "rojo-rbx/[email protected]"

$ cd uses-rojo-7
$ rojo --version
Rojo 7.1.0

$ cat aftman.toml
[tools]
rojo = "rojo-rbx/[email protected]" 

Supported Platforms

Aftman supports:

• Windows (x86, x86-64)
• macOS (x86-64, AArch64)
• Linux (x86, x86-64)

Installation

You can install Aftman by downloading a pre-built binary for your platform from Aftman's GitHub Releases Page.

Once you have the release unzipped, run:

./aftman self-install

This will install Aftman to its own bin directory and update your system's PATH environment variable for you.

Getting Started

To create a new aftman.toml file in your current directory, run

aftman init

To add a new tool, you can follow the instructions in the file, or run

aftman add rojo-rbx/rojo

# install a specific version
aftman add rojo-rbx/[email protected]

# install with a different binary name
aftman add BurntSushi/ripgrep rg

If your PATH is configured correctly (see Installation), you will now be able to run that tool from your project.

To install a tool system-wide so that it can be used anywhere, edit ~/.aftman/aftman.toml or run

aftman add --global rojo-rbx/rojo

To install all tools listed by your aftman.toml files, run

aftman install

Authenticating with GitHub (Aftman 0.2.7+)

If you're running into GitHub rate limits or want to manage private tools hosted on GitHub, you can give Aftman a Personal Access Token.

Generate a Personal Access Token, then edit ~/.aftman/auth.toml to add it:

github = "pat goes here"

Aftman will use this token to authenticate all requests to GitHub.

Subcommands

For detailed help information, run aftman --help.

aftman init

Usage:

aftman init [path]

Creates a new aftman.toml file in the given directory. Defaults to the current directory.

aftman add

Usage:

aftman add [--global] <tool-spec> [tool-alias]

Installs a new tool with the given tool spec and optional alias to use for installing the tool.

Examples:

# Install the latest version of Rojo in the nearest aftman.toml file
aftman add rojo-rbx/rojo

# Install the latest version of Rojo globally
aftman add --global rojo-rbx/rojo

# Install a specific version of Rojo locally
aftman add rojo-rbx/[email protected]

# Install Rojo with a different binary name
aftman add rojo-rbx/[email protected] rojo6

aftman install

Usage:

aftman install [--no-trust-check] [--skip-untrusted]

Install all tools listed in aftman.toml files based on your current directory.

If --no-trust-check is given, all tools will be installed, regardless of whether they are known. This should generally only be used in CI environments. To trust a specific tool before running aftman install, use aftman trust <tool> instead.

If --skip-untrusted is given, only already trusted tools will be installed, others will be skipped and not emit any errors.

aftman self-install

Usage:

aftman self-install

Installs Aftman, upgrades any references to Aftman, and adds aftman to your system PATH if supported.

Whenever you upgrade Aftman, run this command. Aftman makes copies of itself to mimic the tools it installs, and this command will ensure those copies get updated as well.

aftman trust

Usage:

aftman trust <tool-name>

Adds a tool to the list of trusted tools.

Aftman prompts the user before installing new tools. Running aftman trust beforehand skips this prompt. This is useful when running automation that depends on a tool from a known location.

aftman list

Added in Aftman 0.2.6.

Usage:

aftman list

Lists all tools currently managed by Aftman.

aftman update

This subcommand is not yet implemented.

Differences from Foreman

Aftman is spiritually very similar to Foreman, a project I created at Roblox.

I'm hoping to fix some of the core design mistakes I made in Foreman and also take a little more care with the codebase. Roughly:

• Exact version dependencies. Using a range here has tripped up lots of users, so Aftman uses exact versions in all configuration files.
• Commands to install, uninstall, and upgrade tools. Editing a global, tucked-away toml file by hand is rough.
• Change model to no longer trust-by-default. Aftman prompts before downloading new tools. (Roblox/foreman#16).
• Better strategy for storing executables. (Roblox/foreman#11)
• Better heuristics for picking the right artifacts for your platform. Aftman uses your Compiler, OS, architecture, and will eventually support custom patterns. (Roblox/foreman#18)
• Proper error handling. Unlike Foreman, which uses Result::unwrap liberally, Aftman has good error hygiene with helpful context attached.
• Less Roblox-angled. Aftman does not market itself as being for Roblox development. It is a generally useful tool that can install all sorts of CLI tools.

License

Aftman is available under the terms of the MIT license. See https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT or LICENSE for details.