Pel is the most elegant build system

Introduction

Pel is an easy-to-use build system/task runner written in Python. It is designed to be more advanced than task runners like Make or Invoke, but much simpler than complex build systems like CMake or Bazel.

Installation

Installation from pip

pip3 install --user pel

It is safe to install Pel as a global Python package. Installing Pel will never modify any other Python packages on your computer.

Development status

Pel is still in the early stages of development. It is not currently ready for production use.

Features

Cross-platform support

Pel is written in pure Python, and is intended to work on any operating system supported by Python, such as:

• Linux
• Windows
• macOS
• FreeBSD

Why we made Pel

Most build systems are either too simple or too complex.

• A simple build system, like Make or Invoke makes it easy to run arbitrary shell commands, but makes it hard to add non-trivial dependency management and build caching
• A complex build system, like CMake or Bazel, offers sophisticated dependency management and build caching, but only for predefined types of build targets. These build systems are excellent choices for building a large C++ monorepo, but can be unwieldy to integrate with arbitrary commands and obscure build tools.

Pel is designed to be the happy medium between simple and complex.