Add the hand-rolled-toolchain set: a tool installed by hand, not by a resolver - #61
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… resolver A repository needs host tools its language manifest cannot install: a Zig toolchain, a linter, a secrets binary. There are two ways to get one, and they fail differently. Declaring it (a mise.toml row, a .tool-versions line) lets a version manager resolve it for the architecture and OS in front of it. One declaration, one resolver, and the resolver already knows that this release has no aarch64 asset and that one needs a different backend. Writing the installer is always about fifteen lines and always the same fifteen: detect `uname -m`, map it to the vendor's spelling, build a URL, `curl | tar`, move the directory under $HOME, symlink the binary onto PATH. Every one of those lines is a decision the version manager had already made, re-made by hand, per repository. WHAT WAS MEASURED. The sweep this set was promoted on found the same Zig tarball installer written out in TEN repositories -- same `uname -m` case, same two architectures, same ~/.local/zig, same `ln -sf` -- alongside four further bespoke answers to the same question in one workspace: a symlink for one tool, an upstream shell installer for a second, a source build for a third, a `cargo install` for a fourth. The cost is not the duplication. It is that a hand-written installer is untested on the platform it will fail on, and the measured failures are all of that shape: a `mv` into a ~/.local that does not exist yet on a fresh runner; a vendor release carrying darwin and windows assets and no Linux one at all, which resolves cleanly, reports a version, and fails at install time on the architecture nobody developed on. Two rules, both content rules, no git hook: no-hand-rolled-tool-install a fetch piped into an unpacker no-hand-rolled-tool-symlink an `ln -s` onto PATH out of $HOME/.local Both fire on a COMMAND rather than on a declaration, which is a thing a file can be sure about. Checked against the trees the sweep came from: together they hit exactly the ten installers and nothing else. WHAT THE SET DELIBERATELY DOES NOT REFUSE, in the header rather than in a review. `curl ... | sh`, because that is how a version manager ITSELF arrives and the bootstrap cannot be declared in the file the thing being bootstrapped reads. A [[tool]] row or a `want`, because a resolver PROVISIONS and a doctor VERIFIES and the two must be different programs -- and because nothing in one file can tell a restated version from a floor the repository refuses to run below. Distro packages, because refusing those pushes a repository toward vendoring by hand, which is this set's own failure arriving from the other side. `no-pinned-versioned-fetch` in unmanaged-pins does not cover these and cannot: every one of the ten builds its URL out of shell variables, so there is no version in the line to match. Migrating in: a repository still carrying an installer inherits the set and lists the rule in `disabled_rules` until it has moved, rather than declining the set whole. The rule is then armed against the NEXT installer while the existing one is being replaced, and the disabled entry is a line a reader can ask about, which an uninherited set is not.
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📝 WalkthroughWalkthroughThe PR adds the ChangesHand-rolled toolchain policy
Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~20 minutes Merge Risk: 🟡 Moderate · up to The new policy set currently misses valid download-and-unpack commands split across shell continuations and can reject unrelated symlinks under ~/.local, making enforcement incomplete and overly broad for repositories that adopt it. These bounded correctness issues should be fixed before merging. Possibly related PRs
🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5✅ Passed checks (5 passed)
✨ Finishing Touches📝 Generate docstrings
🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)
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Codecov Report✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests. Additional details and impacted files@@ Coverage Diff @@
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Actionable comments posted: 3
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Inline comments:
In `@docs/REFERENCE.md`:
- Line 137: Update the bundled-set count in the sentence near the table to state
that 15 sets are compiled into the binary, keeping the surrounding documentation
unchanged.
In `@policy/base/hand-rolled-toolchain.toml`:
- Around line 110-112: Update the download-and-unpack rule in
policy/base/hand-rolled-toolchain.toml to enable multi-line matching and
recognize shell line continuations between the downloader and archive command;
add refusal corpus samples in tests/base_set_corpus.rs for continued curl and
wget pipelines; regenerate the corresponding policy entry in
policy/base/sets.lock.json.
- Around line 133-135: Update the regexp predicate at
policy/base/hand-rolled-toolchain.toml:133-135 to match symlinks only when the
source or destination is a supported PATH location, such as $HOME/.local/bin or
/usr/local/bin, while allowing non-PATH .local links. Add allowed non-PATH
.local link samples in tests/base_set_corpus.rs:201-208, then regenerate
policy/base/sets.lock.json:491-493 from the updated policy.
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Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:
- Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
- Create a new PR with the fixes
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docs/REFERENCE.mdpolicy/base/hand-rolled-toolchain.tomlpolicy/base/sets.lock.jsonsrc/config.rstests/base_set_corpus.rs
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…local
Three defects found in review, all of them the same kind: a rule that reads
narrower than the argument its header makes.
A GUARD A FORMATTER CAN SWITCH OFF. The download-and-unpack pattern matched
within one line, so the identical command survived it by being wrapped:
curl -fsSL "$url" \
| tar -xJ -C "$tmp"
That is not an evasion anyone has to think of -- it is what a shell linter
asks for once the line gets long. The pattern now follows a backslash
continuation and nothing else, so it is bounded by the command rather than
by the tree: every newline it crosses has to have been continued. A fetch
and an unpack that are two separate commands still pass, and there is now a
corpus sample fixing that, because the failure of a multi-line pattern is to
match any curl above any tar.
`~/.local` IS NOT THE SIGNAL. The symlink rule fired on any link into it,
but `~/.local/share`, `~/.local/state` and `~/.local/lib` are ordinary XDG
destinations and a link into one puts nothing on PATH. Both alternatives now
name a bin directory: the installer's own `~/.local/bin`, or its output
linked from `~/.local` into a system prefix. All ten of the installers this
set was promoted on match the first, so the tightening costs no coverage --
re-measured after the change, both rules still hit exactly ten files and
nothing else.
A COUNT THAT HAD GONE STALE. docs/REFERENCE.md said fourteen sets are
compiled into the binary. Adding one made that fifteen.
2 participants
A new bundled set,
hand-rolled-toolchain. Two content rules, no git hook.no-hand-rolled-tool-installcurl|wget ... | tar/unzip/bsdtar/cpiono-hand-rolled-tool-symlinkln -sonto PATH out of$HOME/.localWhat was measured
A repository needs host tools its language manifest cannot install: a Zig toolchain, a linter, a secrets binary. Declaring it (a
mise.tomlrow, a.tool-versionsline) lets a version manager resolve it for the architecture and OS in front of it. Writing the installer is always about fifteen lines and always the same fifteen: detectuname -m, map it to the vendor's spelling, build a URL,curl | tar, move the directory under$HOME, symlink the binary onto PATH.The sweep this set was promoted on found the same Zig tarball installer written out in ten repositories, byte-comparable: same
uname -mcase, same two architectures, same~/.local/zig, sameln -sf. Beside it, in one workspace, four further bespoke answers to the same question: a symlink for one tool, an upstream shell installer for a second, a source build for a third, acargo installfor a fourth.The cost is not the duplication. It is that a hand-written installer is untested on the platform it will fail on, and the measured failures are all of that shape:
mvinto a~/.localthat does not exist yet on a fresh runnerA version manager meets both on behalf of every consumer at once. Fifteen lines of shell meet them one repository at a time, in CI, months apart.
Why
unmanaged-pinsdoes not already cover thisno-pinned-versioned-fetchrefuses a version typed into a fetched URL, and it is blind to every one of the ten: they all build the URL out of shell variables (${ver},${arch}), so there is no version in the line to match. What is in the line, in all ten, is a fetch piped into an unpacker.What it deliberately does not refuse
Said in the set header rather than discovered in a review:
curl ... | sh. That is how a version manager itself arrives, and the bootstrap cannot be declared in the file the thing being bootstrapped reads. The shape named here is the tarball being unpacked by hand, which is a tool arriving, not a resolver.[[tool]]row, awant, a per-distro package name. A resolver PROVISIONS and a doctor VERIFIES, and the two must be different programs: an installer that grades its own work reports the package manager's exit code and calls a broken host ready. There is also no way to tell, from one file, whether awantrestates a version declared elsewhere or asserts a floor the repository refuses to run below. Both rules here fire on a command, which is a thing a file can be sure about.pacman -Sorapt-get installwould push a repository toward vendoring by hand, which is this set's own failure arriving from the other side.Scoping, and why
~/.localno-hand-rolled-tool-symlinkis scoped to a link into$HOME/.localrather than toln -sonto any PATH directory, because the remedy the set recommends is itself a symlink:ln -sfn "$(mise which zig)" /usr/local/bin/zigThat is the correct move for a caller that reads no shell profile (compose, a systemd unit, a non-interactive ssh), and a rule refusing it would leave that caller with no correct move at all. Both forms are in the corpus
allows, so a narrowing edit fails rather than quietly stopping covering them.Verified
mise.runbootstrap or on a$(mise which ...)link.cargo test: 0 failed across every binary.every_content_rule_in_every_bundled_set_is_in_the_corpusis satisfied.policy/base/sets.lock.jsonregenerated in the same commit.Adopting it
Inheriting is per repository, which is what makes this a gradual migration rather than a flag day. A repository still carrying an installer takes the set and lists the rule in
disabled_rulesuntil it has moved, rather than declining the set whole: the rule is then armed against the next installer while the existing one is being replaced, and the disabled entry is a line in the policy a reader can ask about, which an uninherited set is not.No consumer is affected until it names the set. Nothing in this PR changes an existing set.
Summary by CodeRabbit
New Features
hand-rolled-toolchainpolicy set.$HOME/.localinto executable paths.Documentation
Tests