bdd

bdd is a command line tool for completing Boot.dev lessons in the terminal.

Why? The Boot.dev web interface is great. If you find the videos helpful or enjoy the gamification elements, stick to the web interface. But if you want to hone your skills in the command line and gain familiarity with your editor, give bdd a try.

Interested in contributing? Check out the contribution guidelines.

Prereqs

This tool relies on the Boot.dev CLI to simplify initial authentication. Install the tool and run bootdev login before attempting to use bdd.

Python 3.10 or greater is recommended.

Windows file paths are not supported at this time but could be.

Installation

Note the pypi package name is bddcmd, but the command is bdd. It's 2024, and short names are scarce.

python3 -m pip install bddcmd
bdd --help

Usage

Run bdd init to set up your configuration. You will specify how to run go python (ex: python vs python3), go (ex: go vs go[version]), etc. Note that the editor command should accept a list of files to open. For example, nvim -p (default) for Neovim, code for VS Code, or a /mnt/c/Program Files/ path if you code in the best IDE for programming.

bdd connect will open a websocket connection to receive success/failure messages when submitting lessons. You will likely want this in a visible terminal while working.

bdd get [Boot.dev lesson URL] will retrieve the lesson files and open them with the editor stored in your configuration.

bdd next and bdd prev will move between lessons. bdd get without a URL will get the lesson contents based on your current position. This is useful after changing position and also for resuming work after exiting your editor.

bdd run and bdd submit function similarly to the respective Boot.dev commands.

bdd progress will show your progress in the current course, including lesson completion status.

Development

Virtual environment

Create your virtual environment. I recommend venv which is part of the standard library as of 3.3.

python3 -m venv .venv

and activate it with source .venv/bin/activate.

Install for development with dependencies

python3 -m pip install -e .[dev]

Add a dependency

Add to pyproject.yaml then repeat the pip install command above.

Manual testing

bdd --help

Automated testing

After following the dev installation steps:

pytest

Testing a build

# (in a venv, most likely)
python3 -m build
python3 -m pip install dist/bddcmd-[version].tar.gz

Release

python3 -m pip install --upgrade build
python3 -m build

Add credentials to .pypirc and run:

python3 -m pip install --upgrade twine
python3 -m twine upload --repository testpypi dist/* # testpypi
# python3 -m twine upload dist/* # pypi

Activate a venv and install the package from testpypi to test.

python3 -m pip install --index-url https://test.pypi.org/simple/ --no-deps bdd

How boot.dev lessons work

bdd essentially relies on an undocumented, internal set of boot.dev APIs and conventions. Yes, this is gross, and it will definitely break as changes are made to the platform. The "bet" is that the functionality will be worth this inconvenience.

See bdd.md for more information on how boot.dev lessons work and some examples.