Just Programmer's Manual

Invoking justfiles in Other Directories

If the first argument passed to just contains a /, then the following occurs:

1. The argument is split at the last /.

2. The part before the last / is treated as a directory. just will start its search for the justfile there, instead of in the current directory.

3. The part after the last slash is treated as a normal argument, or ignored if it is empty.

This may seem a little strange, but it’s useful if you wish to run a command in a justfile that is in a subdirectory.

For example, if you are in a directory which contains a subdirectory named foo, which contains a justfile with the recipe build, which is also the default recipe, the following are all equivalent:

$ (cd foo && just build)
$ just foo/build
$ just foo/

Additional recipes after the first are sought in the same justfile. For example, the following are both equivalent:

$ just foo/a b
$ (cd foo && just a b)

And will both invoke recipes a and b in foo/justfile.