rbenv-lock - An rbenv Plugin

Lock executables to run in a specific Ruby version, with an optional gemset via rbenv-gemset, allowing consistent execution and complete isolation of commands on the Ruby of your choice.

Built in top of rbenv as a plugin.

Written in the Crystal language, meaning it produces binary executables, though from my understanding the binaries are not static compiled, and this feature is not available on my platform of choice (macOS). At this time it's unclear what dependencies must be present on the system when using a pre-built binary, but I assume the Crystal runtime must be present.

---

Status

rbenv-lock is in a very early stage of development, and production releases have not yet been made available. It has only been tested on macOS, since those are the only workstations I'm running at the moment.

That said, I've been using it successfully for months now.

---

Installation

Instructions are for macOS only, but I don't see any reason the plugin shouldn't work on other unix-like systems. If you do get 'er running on something else, please do the right thing and PR your instructions and any source changes!

Production releases are not yet available, so you need to build from source.

1. Make sure you have installed, working and in your path:

   1. rbenv

      I install this using Homebrew:

      brew install rbenv
      

   2. rbenv-gemset - if you want to use the gemsets features.

      This is available via Homebrew, but I use my own sped-up fork from

      https://github.com/nrser/rbenv-gemset

   3. Crystal language (compiler, etc.)

      I install this using Homebrew with:

      brew install crystal
      

2. Clone the repo to your rbenv plugins directory

   mkdir -p "$(rbenv root)/plugins)"
   cd "$(rbenv root)/plugins"
   git clone https://github.com/nrser/rbenv-lock.git
   cd rbenv-lock
   

3. Build the plugin executables

   # (in the $(rbenv root)/plugins/rbenv-lock directory)
   make release
   

   This should produce the following executables (in $(rbenv root)/plugins/rbenv-lock):

   bin/rbenv-lock            # User interface
   bin/rbenv-lock-exec-file  # Executable lock exe files use when run
   

4. rbenv should automatically find the executables, making the rbenv-lock interface available at rbenv lock ....

   You can test this by running:

   rbenv lock help
   

---

Usage

Start at

rbenv lock help

and go from there.

You can get help with each rbenv-lock command via

rbenv lock help COMMAND

like

rbenv lock help add

The add command is probably where you want to start since you don't yet have any locks.

---

Development

Install from the Git repo as listed above and you're ready to go!

Debug Builds

The Crystal compiler is a bit sloooow at building releases (optimized builds), so when you be hacking it can be considerably more productive to compile debug versions and play with those.

Create them with

make debug

and tell rbenv-lock to use the debug versions by exporting

export RBENV_LOCK_DEBUG=anything

so it's present in the environment when the revenant things (rbenv and lock exe-files) are run.

The first thing the executables do is check for the presence of RBENV_LOCK_DEBUG, and if they see it and they are release versions then they flip over to running the *-debug version (via an exec to seamlessly replace the process).

📢 Pro Tip - Set Default make Rule In Your Env

You can export RBENV_LOCK_MAKE_DEFAULT=RULE_NAME in your shell to override the default rule run when you execute make with no arguments.

So, if you're building debug over and over during development you can

export RBENV_LOCK_MAKE_DEFAULT=debug

then just run make. Save you characters!

---

License

BSD. West coast y'all. Ride or die.