Package manager for Praia. Written in Praia, bundled with the Praia installation.

Grains (Praia modules) are installed from Git repositories into your project's ext_grains/ directory.

sand is installed automatically with Praia (make install). Requires git on your PATH.

sand init                      Create a grain.yaml in the current directory
sand init --plugin             Create a grain with a native C++ plugin
sand install                   Install or update grains from sand-lock.yaml
sand install <url>             Install a grain locally (into ext_grains/)
sand install --global <url>    Install a grain globally (into ~/.praia/ext_grains/)
sand remove <name>             Remove a locally installed grain
sand remove --global <name>    Remove a globally installed grain
sand list                      List locally installed grains
sand list --global             List globally installed grains
sand info <name>               Show info about an installed grain
sand --version                 Print version
sand help                      Show help

# install locally (into ext_grains/)
sand install github.com/user/mygrain

# pinned to a version (git tag)
sand install github.com/user/mygrain@0.2.0

# from any git URL
sand install https://gitlab.com/user/mygrain.git

# install globally (shared across all projects)
sand install --global github.com/user/mygrain

Then use it in your Praia code:

use "mygrain"

mygrain.doSomething()

Running sand install with no arguments reads sand-lock.yaml and installs any missing grains. Grains pinned to latest are re-fetched to pull updates.

This is useful for cloning a project and restoring its dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/user/myproject.git
cd myproject
sand install

By default, grains are installed locally into ext_grains/ in your project root, tracked in sand-lock.yaml. Each project has its own isolated dependencies.

Use --global (or -g) to install into ~/.praia/ext_grains/ instead, making the grain available to all projects.

Praia resolves grains in this order:

1. ext_grains/ (local project dependencies)
2. grains/ (bundled with your project)
3. ~/.praia/ext_grains/ (user global)
4. <libdir>/grains/ (system, installed with Praia)

Run sand init to create a grain.yaml and main.praia:

name: my-project
version: 0.1.0
description: A short description
author: username
license: MIT
main: main.praia
dependencies:
  db: github.com/user/praia-db
  dotenv: github.com/user/praia-dotenv

When you sand install <url>, the dependency is automatically added to grain.yaml if one exists. Transitive dependencies listed in a grain's own grain.yaml are installed automatically.

A grain is a Git repository with a grain.yaml and Praia source files. The name field in grain.yaml determines the import name (not the repo name).

my-grain-repo/
  grain.yaml       # name: mygrain
  main.praia       # entry point
  helpers.praia    # internal module (use "./helpers")

name: mygrain
version: 0.1.0
main: main.praia
dependencies:

Tag releases with git tags for versioned installs:

git tag 0.1.0
git push origin 0.1.0

• sand install <url> clones the repo, reads the grain's grain.yaml for its name, and copies it into ext_grains/<name>/
• Installed grains are tracked in sand-lock.yaml (local) or ~/.praia/ext_grains/.sand-lock.yaml (global)
• sand install with no arguments restores from sand-lock.yaml, installing missing grains and updating those pinned to latest
• Multi-file grains work because relative imports (use "./helpers") resolve from the grain's own directory