forest

The forest project aims at automatizing the clone and build process for open source software. Differently from other systems such as Conda, or Conan, it is a non-intrusive system which does not aim at environment management.

Quickstart

Setup a new workspace and add new recipes. Optional arguments are surrounded by [square brackets].

[sudo] pip3 install hhcm-forest
mkdir my_ws && cd my_ws
forest init
source setup.bash
forest add-recipes git@github.com:advrhumanoids/multidof_recipes.git [--tag master]

Install the xbot2_examples recipe with its dependencies.

forest grow xbot2_examples [-j8] [--clone-protocol https]

Command line interface

Forest's CLI is divided into three main verbs, i.e. init, add-recipes, and grow.

forest init

Initialize the current folder as a forest workspace, i.e. it creates

a src folder that will contain source code
a recipes folder that will contain forest's recipe files (more on this later)
a build folder to carry out compilation and store build artifacts
an install folder
a setup.bash file which makes installed items visible to the system

forest add-recipes

Adds recipes from a remote.

usage: forest add-recipes [-h] [--tag TAG] [--verbose] url

positional arguments:
 url                   url of the remote (e.g. git@github.com:<username>/<reponame>.git 
                       or https://github.com/<username>/<reponame>.git)

optional arguments:
 -h, --help            show this help message and exit
 --tag TAG, -t TAG
 --verbose, -v         print additional information

forest grow

Builds projects according to the given recipe names, alongside their dependencies. When called from the workspace root without recipe arguments, forest grow builds every package directory under src/ that has an available recipe and warns about source packages without recipes.

usage: forest grow [-h] [--jobs JOBS] [--mode MODE [MODE ...]]
                  [--config CONFIG [CONFIG ...]]
                  [--default-build-type {None,RelWithDebInfo,Release,Debug}]
                  [--force-reconfigure] [--list-eval-locals]
                  [--clone-protocol {ssh,https}] [--clone-depth CLONE_DEPTH]
                  [--cmake-args CMAKE_ARGS [CMAKE_ARGS ...]] [--no-deps]
                  [--clean] [--pwd PWD] [--verbose] [--src-only]
                  [--tag-override TAG_OVERRIDE [TAG_OVERRIDE ...]]
                  [--blacklist RECIPE [RECIPE ...]]
                  [RECIPE ...]

positional arguments:
 RECIPE                name of recipe(s) with fetch and build information

optional arguments:
 -h, --help            show this help message and exit
 --jobs JOBS, -j JOBS  parallel jobs for building
 --mode MODE [MODE ...], -m MODE [MODE ...]
                       specify modes that are used to set conditional
                       compilation flags (e.g., cmake args)
 --config CONFIG [CONFIG ...], -c CONFIG [CONFIG ...]
                       specify configuration variables that can be used
                       inside recipes
 --default-build-type {None,RelWithDebInfo,Release,Debug}, -t {None,RelWithDebInfo,Release,Debug}
                       build type for cmake, it is overridden by recipe
 --force-reconfigure   force calling cmake before building with args from the
                       recipe
 --list-eval-locals    print available attributes when using conditional
                       build args
 --clone-protocol {ssh,https}
                       override clone protocol
 --clone-depth CLONE_DEPTH
                       set maximum history depth to save bandwidth
 --cmake-args CMAKE_ARGS [CMAKE_ARGS ...]
                       specify additional cmake args to be appended to each
                       recipe (leading -D must be omitted)
 --no-deps, -n         skip dependency fetch and build step
 --uninstall           uninstall recipe
 --clean               uninstall recipe and remove build
 --pwd PWD, -p PWD     user password to be used when sudo permission is
                       required (if empty, user is prompted for password);
                       note: to be used with care, as exposing your password
                       might be harmful!
 --verbose, -v         print additional information
 --src-only, -s        only clone sources, skip build step
 --tag-override TAG_OVERRIDE [TAG_OVERRIDE ...], -o TAG_OVERRIDE [TAG_OVERRIDE ...]
                       override the tag/branch/commit specified in recipes.
                       A single value ending in .lock, .yaml, .yml, or .json
                       is loaded as a {pkgname: tag} mapping file. Any other
                       single value overrides the tag for the single selected
                       recipe. Multiple values must use pkg:=tag syntax.
                       Examples:
                       forest grow my_package -o devel
                       forest grow my_package -o forest.lock
                       forest grow my_package -o overrides.json
                       forest grow my_package -o dep_a:=main dep_b:=v1.2.3
 --blacklist RECIPE [RECIPE ...]
                       when growing all source packages from the workspace
                       root, skip these recipes

forest freeze

Snapshots the current HEAD commit of every repository under src/ into a forest.lock file at the workspace root. The lock file is a YAML dictionary of pkgname: sha1 entries.

The command fails if any src/ subdirectory is not a git repository, or if any repository has uncommitted local changes.

usage: forest freeze [-h] [--append] [--ignore-errors]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help        show this help message and exit
  --append, -a      update existing forest.lock in place instead of overwriting it
  --ignore-errors   write forest.lock even if some repos are invalid or have local changes

Example forest.lock:

my_package: 4a7f3c1d2e8b0a9f6c5d3e2b1a0f9e8d7c6b5a4f
other_package: 1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6e7f8a9b0c

License
- OSI Approved :: MIT License
Operating System
- OS Independent
Programming Language
- Python :: 3

Release files for hhcm-forest 1.1.26

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for hhcm-forest 1.1.26
File	Size	Uploaded
hhcm_forest-1.1.26.tar.gz	30.5 kB	Jun 30, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for hhcm-forest 1.1.26
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
hhcm_forest-1.1.26-py3-none-any.whl 35.9 kB Jun 30, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 66.4 kB

Release files / hhcm_forest-1.1.26.tar.gz

Download URL	hhcm_forest-1.1.26.tar.gz
Size	30.5 kB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`8636e68a76b9b03a6e52dd13abfe387df492276555d4b4244dc3b45b3c1b421a`
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Upload date	Jun 30, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.10.20`

Release files / hhcm_forest-1.1.26-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	hhcm_forest-1.1.26-py3-none-any.whl
Size	35.9 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`7c9a7ed8dd3cb3ae5d8325f6315acbd2feb0734d3a5ce667db413bd9ca5231c6`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`4f6c16938a0036ad89b05dff7f712a1f8d0f17de81d15b191b7103971fb42201`
Upload date	Jun 30, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.10.20`