Netsuke - Build systems, not build scripts

Why Netsuke?

Crafted for reliability

Declare

Describe what you want to build, not how. Netsuke figures out the steps, ensuring reproducibility across machines.

Fast by delegation

Netsuke compiles your graph to Ninja, leveraging its blazing fast incremental builds and parallelism.

Safe by default

Structured builds with explicit dependencies are safer by default. Shell escaping and YAML-first validation reduce common error classes.

Polyglot

One tool, many workflows. Build C++, Rust, Python, documentation, and assets in a single unified graph.

The Netsukefile

Readable configuration

The Netsukefile is plain YAML with controlled Jinja expansion. Structure stays declarative; the dynamic parts stay visible.

foreach and when for explicit expansion and filtering
Rules, actions, and defaults that map cleanly onto the build graph
String-only rendering so structure is validated before commands are produced

Read the syntax documentation

Netsukefile

# Reusable commands live in rules
netsuke_version: "1.0.0"

vars:
  cc: "clang"

rules:
  - name: "compile"
    command: "{{ cc }} -c {{ ins }} -o {{ outs }}"

targets:
  - name: "build/main.o"
    rule: "compile"
    sources: "src/main.c"

  - name: "docs/manual.html"
    command: "pandoc {{ ins }} -o {{ outs }}"
    sources: "README.md"

How it works

The Six-Stage Pipeline

Read

Load manifest files from disk

Parse

Validate the manifest as YAML

Expand

Process templates & variables

Render

Deserialize and render string fields

Validate

Check cycles & missing deps

Build

Execute via Ninja backend

Clear feedback, human errors

Netsuke respects your time. Output is minimal when things go right, and helpful when they go wrong.

user@devbox:~/netsuke-demo

➜ ~/netsuke-demo netsuke build app

Parsing manifests... Done (12ms)

Constructing graph... Done (4ms)

[1/3] Compiling utils.c

[2/3] Compiling main.c

[3/3] Linking app

Build successful in 0.45s

➜ ~/netsuke-demo netsuke build broken

× Cycle Detected

The dependency graph contains a cycle:

broken

└─ lib_a

└─ lib_b

└─ broken <-- Cycle here

Check src/Netsukefile:14 for dependency definitions.

What you give up vs. what you gain

Comparing Netsuke to traditional Makefiles.

Feature	Make / Shell Scripts	Netsuke
Configuration	Imperative, shell-dependent	Declarative, structured
Parallelism	Manual flags (-j), flaky	Automatic, max core usage
Clean Builds	Often required manually	Correct by default
Learning Curve	Steep (obscure syntax)	Gentle (Python-like)
Cross-platform	Difficult (Unix vs Windows)	First-class citizen