Consider switching to the node installer for just

[zackkrida]

The just task runner used in Openverse, while a very handy universal utility, may not be a common tool installed by all who which to contribute to Openverse. We could consider streamlining this for users by using the npm version of Just. This would bundle just with our project's Node dependencies.

This would, however, introduce one quirk. Just would be installed in node_modules/bin (maybe not exactly, but for illustrative purposes bear with me) and evoked in package.json scripts. To use it in the project root one would have to type npx just.

Perhaps, then, we could include it as a fallback, and instruct folks in our docs to use their locally-installed just or npx just if they do not have it.

I think this is perhaps not beneficial, but I still wanted to share the idea, or provide a place for contributors who do not have just to confirm that this is an issue worth solving.

[obulat]

Perhaps, then, we could include it as a fallback, and instruct folks in our docs to use their locally-installed just or npx just if they do not have it.

Adding it to the docs as a possible work-around for not installing just sounds as a good solution. However, we should probably regularly be checking if the npx just works the same as the regular just locally.

[sarayourfriend]

Ideally we have 1 way we support of doing things, rather than multiple, especially not multiple that we wouldn't be regularly automatically testing. just is part of our CI script, so we always know it works, because if it breaks, literally everything else breaks 😀

[dhruvkb]

We have just listed as a hard requirement in our general setup guide and we link to

• just's installation section (which includes the subsection for Node)
• all the package managers that have just in their package list
• pre-built binaries for major OSes

I don't think we need to do anything else. Supporting multiple different ways to set up and invoke just will make it more difficult for us as almost all our docs have lots of just recipes.

[sarayourfriend]

I strongly agree with Dhruv. When just isn't available in a distro's package manager, it's available via cargo, which is easily installed and maintained using rustup in essentially all possible environments.

To me, the only reasonable alternative to our current usage of just, is to replace it with e.g., invoke, or some other tool within the rest of our toolchain. Python is a required dependency for Openverse development (our just recipes depend on it) so subsituting "Install just" with "Install invoke via pipx" would be a pretty straightforward change from a contributor perspective, without creating further oddities like the self-bootstrapping pre-commit we use currently (which I always get mixed up with my global pre-commit install, which occasionally causes bizarre issues with pre-commit's environment validation).

[AetherUnbound]

I agree with Dhruv as well. I've even gone and used the musl binaries myself, which worked on every POSIX system I interacted with - it should be straightforward to install and get running for folks.

[zackkrida]

Thanks for the suggestions here! It definitely makes sense to me to keep things as-is. I'm going to close this as I don't think any further discussion is necessary.