Explanation of clib.json

clib.json files contain a single JSON dictionary with the following keys:

Note: clib.json might be named as package.json in older repos, but now it's strongly discouraged to do so.

name

The name of the package. Should be lowercase and match the regular expression /^[0-9a-z-_]+$/.

version

The semantic version number of the package. This number should also be a git tag. For example, str-copy is at version 0.0.3 and has a tag matching that version (https://github.com/stephenmathieson/str-copy.c/tree/0.0.3).

src

An array of source files that make up the implementation of your package. In the case of str-copy, this is:

{
  "src": [
    "src/str-copy.c",
    "src/str-copy.h"
  ]
}

dependencies

A dictionary of packages and their versions. Each entry represents a package dependency. A dependency must be a clib package.

Dependencies are specified in the following format:

"{github user}/{dependency name}": "version number"

Where "version number" may either be a git tag, branch or "*". When "*" is specified, the most recent version will be used (e.g. the "master" branch).

For example, if your package was using version 0.0.3 of str-copy you would specify the dependency as:

{
  "dependencies": {
    "stephenmathieson/str-copy.c": "0.0.3"
  }
}

You may specify any number of dependencies.

development

Development dependencies are for testing and development purposes.

This follows the same format as "dependencies", but will only be installed with $ clib install --dev. This should include packages like:

{
  "development": {
    "stephenmathieson/describe.h": "*"
  }
}

or

{
  "development": {
    "jwerle/libok": "*"
  }
}

repo

The GitHub slug for your package. This is generally {github username}/{package name}, but may be different. For example, str-copy's repo is stephenmathieson/str-copy.c:

{
  "repo": "stephenmathieson/str-copy.c"
}

description

A short-and-sweet description of your package. For example, str-copy's description is:

{
 "description": "Copy a string"
}

keywords

An array of keywords which describe your package. This is currently not used, but when we move to a more sophisticated search, will be extremely helpful.

license

The license your package is released under.

Like other package managers, the value of this field SHOULD be an SPDX license identifier that's OSI Approved.

We recommend MIT, but BSD-3-CLAUSE is a popular license as well.

makefile

Your package's Makefile. If your package requires a non-standard build process, it may be helpful to ship it with a Makefile. This way, packages using it as a dependency might include the following in their Makefile:

deps/your-package/your-package.o:
  $(MAKE) -C deps/your-package

install

Your package's install script. This is typically make install, but can be any executable (for example, ./install.sh). The script should build your package and add it to $PATH.

NOTE: This is for executables and libraries only. Defining an install key will change the behaviour of clib-install(1) -- your package's sources will not be installed to ./deps.

uninstall

Used by clib uninstall, here you can define a script (defaults to make uninstall) to uninstall your executable package. This is expected to remove your package from $PATH and uninstall anything related.