FAKE Command Line

The fake.exe command line interface (CLI) is defined as follows:

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Usage:
fake.exe [fake_opts] run [run_opts] [<script.fsx>] [--] [<scriptargs>...]
fake.exe [fake_opts] build [build_opts] [--] [<scriptargs>...]
fake.exe --version
fake.exe --help | -h

Fake Options [fake_opts]:
-v, --verbose [*]     Verbose (can be used multiple times)
                        Is ignored if -s is used.
                        * -v: Log verbose but only for FAKE
                        * -vv: Log verbose for Paket as well
-s, --silent          Be silent, use this option if you need to pipe your output into another tool or need some additional processing.

Fake Run Options [run_opts]:
-d, --debug           Debug the script.
-n, --nocache         Disable fake cache for this run.
-p, --partial-restore
                      Only restore the required group instead of a full restore,
                      can be set globally by setting the environment variable FAKE_PARTIAL_RESTORE to true.
--fsiargs <fsiargs> [*]  Arguments passed to the f# interactive.

Fake Build Options [build_opts]:
-d, --debug           Debug the script.
-n, --nocache         Disable fake cache for this run.
-p, --partial-restore
                      Only restore the required group instead of a full restore,
                      can be set globally by setting the environment variable FAKE_PARTIAL_RESTORE to true.
--fsiargs <fsiargs> [*]  Arguments passed to the f# interactive.
-f, --script <script.fsx>
                        The script to execute (defaults to `build.fsx`).

Please refer to the Fake.Core.CommandLineParsing documentation for an explanation of the synax.

For now fake only supports the run and build subcommands which are basically equivalent to the Fake as you know it, but more are planned in the future. In general you should use the run subcommand in scripting when you use parameters, because it is safer in regards to adding options without breaking. Use build to have a more dense workflow in the command line

Disclaimer

Ordering of arguments does MATTER. This is a change in behavior from FAKE version 4 to 5.

Examples:

  • fake run -v build.fsx - This will not run fake in verbose mode. Instead it will try to run the script named -v. (But we might support that in the future)
  • fake run build.fsx --fsiargs "--define:BOOTSTRAP" - This will not run build.fsx and define BOOTSTRAP, because --fsiargs needs to be before the script-name.
  • fake build -s - This will run fake in single-target mode and not in silent mode, you need to use fake -s build as described in the above usage description.

--verbose [-v]

Print details of FAKE's activity. Note that -v was used for --version in previous versions of Fake. Currently Fake supports 4 verbosity levels:

  • a single --silent will prevent all output from the fake runner. This makes it easy to use a .fsx script for data processing or pipelining on the command-line
  • None is regular fake information like performance-numbers, general informations and warnings as well as regular output from the script
  • a single --verbose means verbose output from the fake runner
  • two --verbose --verbose or -vv mean to set other projects (like paket) to verbose mode as well.

--version

Prints FAKE version information.

--help

Prints help information. In contrast to the other options you can use --help everywhere. For example fake run --help to get help about the run subcommand.

Basic examples

Specify build script only: fake.exe run mybuildscript.fsx

Specify target name only: fake.exe run build.fsx --target Clean (runs the Clean target).

As fake build is a shortcut you could use:

Specify target name only: fake.exe build -t Clean (runs the Clean target).

<script.fsx> or --script <script.fsx>

Required. The path to your .fsx build file. Note that for fake run the first "unknown" argument is parsed as the script name and all other parameters are interpreted as arguments for the script.

To support specially named files like --fsiargs you could use fake build --script --fsiargs

--fsiargs <fsiargs>

Pass a single argument after this switch to FSI when running the build script. See F# Interactive Options for the fsi CLI details.

This way you can use for example #if MYFLAG compiler directives in your script and use --fsiargs --define:MYFLAG

--help or -h

Display CLI help.

Running Targets

Please refer to the Fake.Core.Target module documentation

For reference the CLI for the targets-module looks like this:

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Usage:
  fake-run --list
  fake-run --version
  fake-run --help | -h
  fake-run [target_opts] [target <target>] [--] [<targetargs>...]

Target Module Options [target_opts]:
    -t, --target <target>
                          Run the given target (ignored if positional argument 'target' is given)
    -e, --environment-variable <keyval> [*]
                          Set an environment variable. Use 'key=val'
    -s, --single-target    Run only the specified target.
    -p, --parallel <num>  Run parallel with the given number of tasks.

Basically this means you insert the options as <scriptargs> parameters at the end.