Deps.zig

Deps.zig is a dependency manager for Zig. It is designed for simplicity from both an implementation and usability standpoint. The API is similar to the other APIs used in build.zig, and is implemented in around 300 lines of code.

It is configured solely through build.zig, and automatically builds dependency trees without any extra metadata, however it requires every package in the tree to be registered manually. This means you may need to specify packages you don't directly depend on, but allows for more flexibility as you can swap out compatible implementations as you see fit.

Usage

Deps.zig is a standalone Zig file that is designed to be copied into your project. It will install packages into a system-specific directory, as listed below. You can override this location by setting the DEPS_ZIG_CACHE environment variable.

To use Deps.zig in your build.zig, simply add code like the following, or look in the example directory in this repo for a more complete example.

To update all dependencies, run zig build update.

// Create a new dependency list
var deps = @import("Deps.zig").init(b);
// Add a package, with a "version" of `main`, meaning it will use the latest commit on the `main` branch
deps.add("https://github.com/silversquirl/zig-uuid", "main");
// Add all registered packages to the executable step
deps.addTo(exe);

Default cache directory

• *nix: $XDG_CACHE_HOME/deps-zig/ (or ~/.cache/deps-zig/ if XDG_CACHE_HOME is unset)
• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Temp\deps-zig\
• macOS: ~/Library/Caches/deps-zig/

Package names

The name of a package is determined by the last path component in its git URL. Any prefix of zig-, or suffix of -zig or .zig, will be stripped, along with any .git suffix.

For example, for the URL https://github.com/silversquirl/zig-uuid.git, the name uuid will be used.