Running Taskfile

task command is used to run a Taskfile. By default, it looks for one of the supported Taskfile names in the current directory. You can also specify a Taskfile explicitly using the -t or --taskfile option.

task -t <file-path> <task-name>
task -t directory/ default
task -t directory/CustomTask.yml custom

Supported Taskfile names

• Taskfile.yml
• taskfile.yml
• Taskfile.yaml
• taskfile.yaml
• Taskfile.dist.yml
• taskfile.dist.yml
• Taskfile.dist.yaml
• taskfile.dist.yaml

Run a Taskfile from a subdirectory

• main-directory
  • Taskfile.yml
  • sub-directory
    • sample.txt

Let’s said we’re in the sub-directory, but the Taskfile.yml cannot be found in the current directory, in this case, when you run the task command, it will go up one directory level to look for the Taskfile until it finds one or reaches the root directory.

In this case, it will still work if you run the task command from the sub-directory.

ubuntu@touted-mite:~/main-directory$ ls -R ./
./:
Taskfile.yml  sub-directory
 
./sub-directory:
sample.txt
 
ubuntu@touted-mite:~/main-directory$ cd sub-directory/
ubuntu@touted-mite:~/main-directory/sub-directory$ task default
Hello, World!

Special {{ .USER_WORKING_DIR }} variable

• main-directory
  • Taskfile.yml
  • sub-directory
    • sample.txt
    • Dockerfile

{{ .USER_WORKING_DIR }} is a special variable that contains the path to the directory where the task commadn was run. For example, we can cd into the sub-directory and run a task command to build a Docker image or display Dockerfile content without having to specify the full path and can remove duplicate Taskfiles with the same content.

version: '3'
 
tasks:
  build-docker:
    dir: '{{ .USER_WORKING_DIR }}'
    cmds:
      - docker build -t new-image .
  display-file:
    dir: '{{ .USER_WORKING_DIR }}'
    cmds:
      - cat Dockerfile

ubuntu@touted-mite:~/main-directory/sub-directory$ task display-file
task: [display-file] cat Dockerfile
FROM ubuntu:20

Run a global Taskfile

You can run a global Taskfile by specifing the -g or --global option. This will look for a Taskfile in the user’s home directory.

• /home/<username>/Taskfile.yml
• C:/Users/<username>/Taskfile.yml

version: '3'
 
tasks:
  from-home:
    cmds:
      - pwd
 
  from-working-directory:
    dir: '{{.USER_WORKING_DIR}}'
    cmds:
      - pwd

ubuntu@touted-mite:~$ task -g from-home
task: [from-home] pwd
/home/ubuntu
 
ubuntu@touted-mite:~$ cd main-directory/sub-directory/
ubuntu@touted-mite:~/main-directory/sub-directory$ task -g from-working-directory
task: [from-working-directory] pwd
/home/ubuntu/main-directory/sub-directory

Read a Taskfile from stdin

This method is very useful when you are generating Taskfile content dynamically or when you want to run a Taskfile without saving it to a file. To read a Taskfile from stdin, you have to specify two things:

1. -t or --taskfile option
2. - pipe

task -t - <(cat Taskfile.yml)
 
# OR I prefer this way
cat ./Taskfile.yml | task -t -
cat ./Taskfile.yml | task -t - <task-name>

• This Taskfile path must correctly point to the Taskfile content.

• main-directory
  • Taskfile.yml
  • sub-directory
    • sample.txt
    • Dockerfile

# wrong path
ubuntu@touted-mite:~/main-directory/sub-directory$ cat ./Taskfile.yml | task -t - display-file
cat: ./Taskfile.yml: No such file or directory
task: Missing schema version in Taskfile "__stdin__"
 
# correct path
ubuntu@touted-mite:~/main-directory/sub-directory$ cat ../Taskfile.yml | task -t - display-file
task: [display-file] cat Dockerfile
FROM ubuntu:20