Dependencies

Dependencies run before recipes that depend on them:

a: b
  @echo A

b:
  @echo B

$ just a
B
A

In a given invocation of just, a recipe with the same arguments will only run once, regardless of how many times it appears in the command-line invocation, or how many times it appears as a dependency:

a:
  @echo A

b: a
  @echo B

c: a
  @echo C

$ just a a a a a
A
$ just b c
A
B
C

Multiple recipes may depend on a recipe that performs some kind of setup, and when those recipes run, that setup will only be performed once:

build:
  cc main.c

test-foo: build
  ./a.out --test foo

test-bar: build
  ./a.out --test bar

$ just test-foo test-bar
cc main.c
./a.out --test foo
./a.out --test bar

Recipes in a given run are only skipped when they receive the same arguments:

build:
  cc main.c

test TEST: build
  ./a.out --test {{TEST}}

$ just test foo test bar
cc main.c
./a.out --test foo
./a.out --test bar

Running Recipes at the End of a Recipe

Normal dependencies of a recipes always run before a recipe starts. That is to say, the dependee always runs before the depender. These dependencies are called “prior dependencies”.

A recipe can also have subsequent dependencies, which run immediately after the recipe and are introduced with an &&:

a:
  echo 'A!'

b: a && c d
  echo 'B!'

c:
  echo 'C!'

d:
  echo 'D!'

…running b prints:

$ just b
echo 'A!'
A!
echo 'B!'
B!
echo 'C!'
C!
echo 'D!'
D!

Running Recipes in the Middle of a Recipe

just doesn’t support running recipes in the middle of another recipe, but you can call just recursively in the middle of a recipe. Given the following justfile:

a:
  echo 'A!'

b: a
  echo 'B start!'
  just c
  echo 'B end!'

c:
  echo 'C!'

…running b prints:

$ just b
echo 'A!'
A!
echo 'B start!'
B start!
echo 'C!'
C!
echo 'B end!'
B end!

This has limitations, since recipe c is run with an entirely new invocation of just: Assignments will be recalculated, dependencies might run twice, and command line arguments will not be propagated to the child just process.