Zesk Build v0.44.9

Documentation can be found at https://build.zesk.com. (Next version)

Pipeline, build, and operations tools useful for any project written exclusively in bash and works across all major platforms, devices, and operating systems.

• System setup, service management, permissions separations
• Tools to simplify development workflows; automatic documentation for Bash scripts and functions, completions, and interactivity
• Testing and assertion library for Bash which outputs jUnit, TAP with extensible hooks.
• Extensive, platform agnostic utilities

This code toolkit depends solely on bash and a few other binaries (jq, sed, find, awk) and a conscientious decision has been made to not depend on any other language libraries, as of 2026 support for Bash 3 and 4 remains stable.

This toolkit assumes:

• Sources from this project are installed at $BUILD_HOME/bin/build/
• Bash code files end with .sh
• Release notes are located in a dedicated subdirectory (can be configured per-project), using markdown .md ( required) and named v1.0.0.md which match version names (v1.0.0) (required)

You can use Zesk Build solely as a toolkit within your project, or directly into your operating system.

To use in your project:

• copy bin/build/install-bin-build.sh into your project (changing last line as needed) or use installInstallBuild to install the installation script (to be clear — installs install-bin-build.sh into your project with the correct path setup to your project root).
• Run the installer it before you need this code (will be installed at ./bin/build)
• source bin/build/tools.sh to load the library and use any function defined

To install globally:

• Mac OS X: Requires port or brew, install jq
• Windows: Requires Windows Subsystem for Linux, ensure jq is installed
• Copy bin/build/install-bin-build.sh to /usr/local/bin/build/ (or your preferred directory) and sudo /usr/local/bin/build/install-bin-build.sh
• Source /usr/local/bin/build/tools.sh in your scripts to get access to all functions

Directly from the web:

mkdir -p bin/build && cd bin/build
curl -s "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zesk/build/refs/tags/v0.44.9/bin/build/install-bin-build.sh" | bash

• ./bin/build/tools.sh - The only include required for all build tools functions, also can be used as ./bin/build/tools.sh identicalCheck ...

When using Zesk Build in your project, the following directories in your project structure have significance:

• ./ - Application root (same as buildHome)
• ./bin/build/ - Zesk Build installation location (may not be changed)
• ./bin/hooks/ - Application hook implementation (hook-name with .sh – or other extensions)
• ./bin/env/ - Your project's environment variables defaults (NAME with .sh on the end if you use buildEnvironmentLoad or buildEnvironmentGet)
• ./docs/release/v1.0.0.md - Release notes

You can add or override these defaults:

• loaded environment files can be extended by adding a path to BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_DIRS
• hooks can be extended by adding a path to BUILD_HOOK_DIRS
• Release notes path can be modified by setting the BUILD_RELEASE_NOTES environment variable

Internally Zesk Build is organized:

• bin/build/env/*.sh - All external environment variables are referenced here. Projects should override default behavior with ./bin/env/*.sh files.
• bin/build/hooks/*.sh - Default hooks are located — if your application does not implement them - this version is used.
• bin/build/tools/*.sh - Build tools function implementations

Requires:

• jq - Parsing JSON files, formatting
• bc - Floating-point math
• awk sed find - POSIX utilities
• curl or wget - Remote installation

Optional:

• shellcheck - bash linting code
• pcregrep - documentation generation and support
• unzip - for awsInstall

As a shortcut to running functions:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
"${NOT-BASH_SOURCE[0]%/*}/../bin/build/tools.sh" decorate orange "The code is working."

To load all functions:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# shellcheck source=/dev/null
if source "${NOT-BASH_SOURCE[0]%/*}/../bin/build/tools.sh"; then 
    decorate orange "The code is working."
    decorate big "Hooray."
else
    printf -- "%s\n" "No tools.sh" 1>&2 && false
fi

For more complex (and more robust error handling) see __install and __tools code in bin/build/identical.

Scripts support loading one or more environment files and running commands directly in a test container:

bin/build/tools.sh bitbucketContainer --env-file .STAGING.env bin/test.sh

All copyrights held by Market Acumen, Inc., a provider of infrastructure and cloud expertise.

License is Apache License. Source can be found online at GitHub.

Reviewed: 2026-06-01

(This is a copy – original at documentation/template/docs/README.md)