gbuild

gbuild started as a bash script to stop me from typing the same git-clone, cd, make sequence over and over. It's since been rewritten in C and grown a few useful features — but the idea is still the same: one command to get the latest code and build it.

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What it does

Run gbuild with no arguments and you get a project overview — every repo you've built before, when you last built it, whether it passed or failed, and the HEAD hash it was on. Pick one with J/K and hit Enter.

Run gbuild myproject to go straight to a specific project. If it hasn't been cloned yet, gbuild clones it first. If it has, it pulls. Then it reads your Makefile, shows you the targets, and you pick one. Pass --target if you already know what you want and don't need the picker.

Every build gets logged to ~/.local/log/gbuild/. Run gbuild --logs to browse them — file list on the left, preview on the right, open anything in less if you need the full output.

Configuration lives in ~/.gconfig. Run gconfig init to create one, then edit it with your git server URL and credentials. Token and password auth are both supported.

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Dependencies

You'll need gcc, make, git, less, and the ncurses development headers. Most systems have everything except the ncurses headers — the package is usually called libncurses-dev, ncurses-devel, or just ncurses depending on your distribution.

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Building

make
sudo make install

That puts gbuild and gconfig in /usr/local/bin. If you want them somewhere else, sudo make install PREFIX=/your/path.

There's also make release which produces a source tarball, a stripped binary tarball, a .deb, and an .rpm all in one go under dist/.

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Setup

gconfig init        # creates ~/.gconfig with defaults
$EDITOR ~/.gconfig  # fill in your server URL and credentials
gconfig show        # check it looks right
gbuild              # open the overview and pick something to build

Your ~/.gconfig looks like this:

[git]
GIT_URL  = http://localhost:3000
GIT_USER = myuser

[auth]
# token or password, leave the other blank
GIT_TOKEN    =
GIT_PASSWORD =

[build]
DEFAULT_TARGET =
CLONE_DIR      = ~/projects

[log]
LOG_ENABLED = true
LOG_DIR     = ~/.local/log/gbuild

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Usage

gbuild                   open the project overview
gbuild <project>         clone/pull and build
gbuild --target <t> <p>  skip the picker, run target t
gbuild --logs            open the log browser
gbuild --no-tui          print usage (useful in scripts)
gbuild --url  --user [username] [projectname]   one-off config override

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gconfig

gconfig init            create ~/.gconfig (won't overwrite)
gconfig init --force    overwrite, backs up the old file first
gconfig show            print config, masks auth fields
gconfig help

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Project layout

gbuild/
├── Makefile
├── README.md
├── include/
│   ├── config.h      ~/.gconfig read/write
│   ├── git_ops.h     clone, pull, HEAD hash
│   ├── index.h       ~/.gbuild_index — persistent build history
│   ├── logger.h      terminal output + log files
│   ├── make_ops.h    Makefile parser and build runner
│   └── tui.h         all three ncurses screens
├── pkg/
│   ├── deb/          .deb package templates
│   └── rpm/          .rpm spec template
└── src/
├── gbuild.c
├── gconfig.c
├── config.c
├── git_ops.c
├── index.c
├── logger.c
├── make_ops.c
└── tui.c

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MIT Copyright (c) Schmidt Peter Daniel 2026