Glide: Vendor Package Management for Golang

Are you used to tools such as Cargo, npm, Composer, Nuget, Pip, Maven, Bundler, or other modern package managers? If so, Glide is the comparable Go tool.

Manage your vendor and vendored packages with ease. Glide is a tool for managing the vendor directory within a Go package. This feature, first introduced in Go 1.5, allows each package to have a vendor directory containing dependent packages for the project. These vendor packages can be installed by a tool (e.g. glide), similar to go get or they can be vendored and distributed with the package.

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Features

  • Ease dependency management
  • Support versioning packages including Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 support. Any constraint the github.com/Masterminds/semver package can parse can be used.
  • Support aliasing packages (e.g. for working with github forks)
  • Remove the need for munging import statements
  • Work with all of the go tools
  • Support the VCS tools that Go supports:
    • git
    • bzr
    • hg
    • svn
  • Support custom local and global plugins (see docs/plugins.md)
  • Repository caching including reuse of packages in the $GOPATH
  • Flatten dependencies resolving version differences and avoiding the inclusion of a package multiple times.

How It Works

The dependencies for a project are listed in a glide.yaml file. This can include a version, VCS, repository location (that can be different from the package name), etc. When glide up is run it downloads the packages (or updates) to the vendor directory. It then recursively walks through the downloaded packages looking for those with a glide.yaml file (or Godep, gb, or GPM config file) that don't already have a vendor directory and installing their dependencies to their vendor directories. Once Glide has downloaded and figured out versions to use in the dependency tree it creates a glide.lock file containing the complete dependency tree pinned to specific versions. To install the correct versions use glide install.

A projects is structured like this:

- $GOPATH/src/myProject (Your project)
  |
  |-- glide.yaml
  |
  |-- glide.lock
  |
  |-- main.go (Your main go code can live here)
  |
  |-- mySubpackage (You can create your own subpackages, too)
  |    |
  |    |-- foo.go
  |
  |-- vendor
       |-- github.com
            |
            |-- Masterminds
                  |
                  |-- ... etc.

Take a look at the Glide source code to see this philosophy in action.

Install

On Mac OS X you can install the latest release via Homebrew:

$ brew install glide

Binary packages are available for Mac, Linux and Windows.

To build from source you can:

  1. Clone this repository into $GOPATH/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide and change directory into it
  2. Ensure that the environment variable GO15VENDOREXPERIMENT is set, f.ex. by running export GO15VENDOREXPERIMENT=1
  3. Run make bootstrap, followed by make build

This will leave you with ./glide, which you can put in your $PATH if you'd like. (You can also take a look at make install to install for you.)

The Glide repo has now been configured to use glide to manage itself, too.

Usage

$ glide create                            # Start a new workspace
$ open glide.yaml                         # and edit away!
$ glide get github.com/Masterminds/cookoo # Get a package and add to glide.yaml
$ glide install                           # Install packages and dependencies
# work, work, work
$ go build                                # Go tools work normally
$ glide up                                # Update to newest versions of the package

Check out the glide.yaml in this directory, or examples in the docs/ directory.

glide create (aliased to init)

Initialize a new workspace. Among other things, this creates a glide.yaml file while attempting to guess the packages and versions to put in it. For example, if your project is using Godep it will use the versions specified there. Glide is smart enough to scan your codebase and detect the imports being used whether they are specified with another package manager or not.

$ glide create
[INFO] Generating a YAML configuration file and guessing the dependencies
[INFO] Attempting to import from other package managers (use --skip-import to skip)
[INFO] Found reference to github.com/Sirupsen/logrus
[INFO] Adding sub-package hooks/syslog to github.com/Sirupsen/logrus
[INFO] Found reference to github.com/boltdb/bolt
[INFO] Found reference to github.com/gorilla/websocket
[INFO] Found reference to github.com/mndrix/ps
[INFO] Found reference to github.com/spf13/cobra
[INFO] Found reference to github.com/spf13/pflag
[INFO] Found reference to github.com/tinylib/msgp/msgp
[INFO] Found reference to github.com/unrolled/secure
[INFO] Found reference to github.com/xeipuuv/gojsonschema
[INFO] Found reference to github.com/zenazn/goji/graceful
[INFO] Adding sub-package web to github.com/zenazn/goji
[INFO] Adding sub-package web/mutil to github.com/zenazn/goji

glide get [package name]

You can download one or more packages to your vendor directory and have it added to your glide.yaml file with glide get.

$ glide get github.com/Masterminds/cookoo

When glide get is used it will introspect the listed package to resolve its dependencies including using Godep, GPM, and GB config files.

glide update (aliased to up)

Download or update all of the libraries listed in the glide.yaml file and put them in the vendor directory. It will also recursively walk through the dependency packages doing the same thing if no vendor directory exists.

$ glide up

This will recurse over the packages looking for other projects managed by Glide, Godep, gb, and GPM. When one is found those packages will be installed as needed.

A glide.lock file will be created or updated with the dependencies pinned to specific versions. For example, if in the glide.yaml file a version was specified as a range (e.g., ^1.2.3) it will be set to a specific commit id in the glide.lock file. That allows for reproducible installs (see glide install).

glide install

When you want to install the specific versions from the glide.lock file use glide install.

$ glide install

This will read the glide.lock file, making sure it's tied to the glide.yaml file, and install the commit id specific versions there.

When the glide.lock file doesn't tie to the glide.yaml file, such as there being a change, it will provide an error. Running glide up will recreate the glide.lock file when updating the dependency tree.

If no glide.lock file is present glide install will perform an update and generate a lock file.

glide novendor (aliased to nv)

When you run commands like go test ./... it will iterate over all the subdirectories including the vendor directory. When you are testing your application you may want to test your application files without running all the tests of your dependencies and their dependencies. This is where the novendor command comes in. It lists all of the directories except vendor.

$ go test $(glide novendor)

This will run go test over all directories of your project except the vendor directory.

glide name

When you‘re scripting with Glide there are occasions where you need to know the name of the package you’re working on. glide name returns the name of the package listed in the glide.yaml file.

glide rebuild

Re-run go install on the packages in the glide.yaml file. This (along with glide install and glide update) pays special attention to the contents of the subpackages: directive in the YAML file.

$ glide rebuild
[INFO] Building dependencies.
[INFO] Running go build github.com/kylelemons/go-gypsy/yaml
[INFO] Running go build github.com/Masterminds/cookoo/cli
[INFO] Running go build github.com/Masterminds/cookoo

This is useful when you are working with large 3rd party libraries. It will create the .a files, which can have a positive impact on your build times.

glide tree

Glide includes a few commands that inspect code and give you details about what is imported. glide tree is one such command. Running it gives data like this:

$ glide tree
github.com/Masterminds/glide
	github.com/Masterminds/cookoo   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/cookoo)
		github.com/Masterminds/cookoo/io   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/cookoo/io)
	github.com/Masterminds/glide/cmd   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/cmd)
		github.com/Masterminds/cookoo   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/cookoo)
			github.com/Masterminds/cookoo/io   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/cookoo/io)
		github.com/Masterminds/glide/gb   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/gb)
		github.com/Masterminds/glide/util   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/util)
			github.com/Masterminds/vcs   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/vcs)
		github.com/Masterminds/glide/yaml   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/yaml)
			github.com/Masterminds/glide/util   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/util)
				github.com/Masterminds/vcs   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/vcs)
			github.com/Masterminds/vcs   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/vcs)
			gopkg.in/yaml.v2   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/gopkg.in/yaml.v2)
		github.com/Masterminds/semver   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/semver)
		github.com/Masterminds/vcs   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/vcs)
		github.com/codegangsta/cli   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/codegangsta/cli)
	github.com/codegangsta/cli   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/codegangsta/cli)
	github.com/Masterminds/cookoo   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/cookoo)
		github.com/Masterminds/cookoo/io   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/cookoo/io)
	github.com/Masterminds/glide/gb   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/gb)
	github.com/Masterminds/glide/util   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/util)
		github.com/Masterminds/vcs   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/vcs)
	github.com/Masterminds/glide/yaml   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/yaml)
		github.com/Masterminds/glide/util   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/util)
			github.com/Masterminds/vcs   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/vcs)
		github.com/Masterminds/vcs   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/vcs)
		gopkg.in/yaml.v2   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/gopkg.in/yaml.v2)
	github.com/Masterminds/semver   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/semver)
	github.com/Masterminds/vcs   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/Masterminds/vcs)
	github.com/codegangsta/cli   (/Users/mfarina/Code/go/src/github.com/Masterminds/glide/vendor/github.com/codegangsta/cli)

This shows a tree of imports, excluding core libraries. Because vendoring makes it possible for the same package to live in multiple places, glide tree also prints the location of the package being imported.

glide list

Glide's list command shows an alphabetized list of all the packages that a project imports.

$ glide list
INSTALLED packages:
	vendor/github.com/Masterminds/cookoo
	vendor/github.com/Masterminds/cookoo/fmt
	vendor/github.com/Masterminds/cookoo/io
	vendor/github.com/Masterminds/cookoo/web
	vendor/github.com/Masterminds/semver
	vendor/github.com/Masterminds/vcs
	vendor/github.com/codegangsta/cli
	vendor/gopkg.in/yaml.v2

glide help

Print the glide help.

$ glide help

glide --version

Print the version and exit.

$ glide --version
glide version 0.8.0

glide.yaml

The glide.yaml file does two critical things:

  1. It names the current package
  2. It declares external dependencies

A brief glide.yaml file looks like this:

package: github.com/Masterminds/glide
import:
  - package: github.com/Masterminds/semver
  - package: github.com/Masterminds/cookoo
    vcs: git
    version: ^1.2.0
    repo: git@github.com:Masterminds/cookoo.git

The above tells glide that...

  1. This package is named github.com/Masterminds/glide
  2. That this package depends on two libraries.

The first library exemplifies a minimal package import. It merely gives the fully qualified import path.

When Glide reads the definition for the second library, it will get the repo from the source in repo, checkout the latest version between 1.2.0 and 2.0.0, and put it in github.com/Masterminds/cookoo in the vendor directory. (Note that package and repo can be completely different)

TIP: The version is either VCS dependent and can be anything that can be checked out or a semantic version constraint that can be parsed by the github.com/ Masterminds/semver package. For example, with Git this can be a branch, tag, or hash. This varies and depends on what's supported in the VCS.

TIP: In general, you are advised to use the base package name for importing a package, not a subpackage name. For example, use github.com/kylelemons/go-gypsy and not github.com/kylelemons/go-gypsy/yaml.

Controlling package and subpackage builds

In addition to fetching packages, Glide builds the packages with go install. The YAML file can give special instructions about how to build a package. Example:

package: github.com/technosophos/glide
import:
  - package: github.com/kylelemons/go-gypsy
    subpackages:
      - yaml
  - package: github.com/Masterminds/cookoo
    subpackages:
      - .
      - cli
      - web
  - package: github.com/crowdmob/amz
    subpackages:
      - ...

According to the above, the following packages will be built:

  1. The go-gypsy/yaml package
  2. The cookoo package (.), along with cookoo/web and cookoo/cli
  3. Everything in amz (...)

See the docs/ folder for more examples.

Supported Version Control Systems

The Git, SVN, Mercurial (Hg), and Bzr source control systems are supported. This happens through the vcs package.

Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Q.)

Q: Why does Glide have the concept of sub-packages when Go doesn't?

In Go every directory is a package. This works well when you have one repo containing all of your packages. When you have different packages in different VCS locations things become a bit more complicated. A project containing a collection of packages should be handled with the same information including the version. By grouping packages this way we are able to manage the related information.

Q: bzr (or hg) is not working the way I expected. Why?

These are works in progress, and may need some additional tuning. Please take a look at the vcs package. If you see a better way to handle it please let us know.

Q: Should I check vendor/ into version control?

That‘s up to you. It’s not necessary, but it may also cause you extra work and lots of extra space in your VCS. There may also be unforeseen errors (see an example).

Q: How do I import settings from GPM, Godep, or gb?

There are two parts to importing.

  1. If a package you import has configuration for GPM, Godep, or gb Glide will recursively install the dependencies automatically.
  2. If you would like to import configuration from GPM, Godep, or gb to Glide see the glide import command. For example, you can run glide import godep for Glide to detect the projects Godep configuration and generate a glide.yaml file for you.

Each of these will merge your existing glide.yaml file with the dependencies it finds for those managers, and then emit the file as output. It will not overwrite your glide.yaml file.

You can write it to file like this:

$ glide import godep -f glide.yaml

Q: Can Glide fetch a package based on OS or Arch?

A: Yes. Using the os and arch fields on a package, you can specify which OSes and architectures the package should be fetched for. For example, the following package will only be fetched for 64-bit Darwin/OSX systems:

- package: some/package
  os:
    - darwin
  arch:
    - amd64

The package will not be fetched for other architectures or OSes.

LICENSE

This package is made available under an MIT-style license. See LICENSE.txt.

Thanks!

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the GPM and GVP projects, which inspired many of the features of this package. If glide isn't the right Go project manager for you, check out those.

The Composer (PHP), npm (JavaScript), and Bundler (Ruby) projects all inspired various aspects of this tool, as well.

The Name

Aside from being catchy, “glide” is a contraction of “Go Elide”. The idea is to compress the tasks that normally take us lots of time into a just a few seconds.