godownloader

Download Go binaries as fast and easily as possible

This is the inverse of goreleaser. The goreleaser YAML file is read and creates a custom shell script that can download the right package and the right version for the existing machine.

If you use goreleaser already, this will create scripts suitable for "curl bash" style downloads.

• Run godownloader on your goreleaser.yaml file
• Add the godownloader.sh file to your repo
• Tell your users to use https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YOU/YOURAPP/master/godownloader.sh to install

This is also useful in CI/CD systems such as travis-ci.org.

• Much faster then 'go get' (sometimes up to 100x)
• Make sure your local environment (macOS) and CI enviroment (Linux) are using the exact same versions of your go binaries.

CI/CD Example

Let's say you are using hugo, the static website generator, with travis-ci.

Your old .travis.yml file might have

install:
  - go get github.com/spf13/hugo

This can take up to 30 seconds!

Hugo doesn't have (yet) a godownloader.sh file. So we will make our own:

# create a godownloader script
godownloader -repo spf/hugo > ./godownloader-hugo.sh`

and add godownloader-hugo.sh to your GitHub repo. Edit your .travis.yml as such

install:
  - ./godownloader-hugo.sh 0.20.6

There is even experimental download latest function:

install:
  - ./godownloader-hugo.sh latest

Typical download time is 0.3 seconds, or 100x improvement.

Your new hugo binary is in ./bin, so change your Makefie or scripts to use ./bin/hugo.

Status

• Only GitHub Releases are supported right now.
• Checksums are checked.
• Binares are installed using tar.gz or zip.
• No support for Windows anything. I just don't know enough about it.
• No OS-specific installs such as homebrew, deb, rpm. Everything is installed locally via a tar.gz or zip. Typically OS installs are done differently anyways (e.g. brew, apt-get, yum, etc).

TODO

• #10 Adjustment of default BINDIR (install directory)
• #11 Use goreleaser to release godownloader
• #12 Use godownloader to download godownloader

Yes, it's true.

It's a go program that reads a YAML file that uses a template to make a posix shell script.