brettbeatty

brettbeatty

At my work we build a lot of mix tasks for backfills and other maintenance tasks. Even with OptionParser we seem to copy a lot of boilerplate between tasks. I’m wondering if folks would prefer a more batteries-included solution for building mix tasks, maybe even a domain-specific language for declaring options and such.

I’ve built a library called Executive, not published on Hex, and I’m looking for feedback on whether folks would use something like it (is there already something like it I’m missing?) or anything y’all would change.

It provides a mix task for generating mix tasks:

mix executive.gen.task my_object.do_something --uuid id --required \
  --string cursor --datetime after --pos-integer batch_size --start-application

Running that task would generate a mix task that could get called as

mix my_object.do_something --id a7cde5bd-3878-42f9-b439-d49fd4ba37f9 \
  --cursor b219859c98bb --after 2024-01-15T12:34:56Z --batch-size 500

Inside the mix task, you declare a bunch of options like this:

@optdoc "whether you want a or b or c"
option :my_option, {:enum, [:a, :b, :c]}

And Executive implements c:Mix.Task.run/1, parses the options assertively, and calls c:Executive.Task.run/2 with the parsed options. But since the options are declared, it can also build docs and types and such for the task.

Where Next? Top

Trending in RFCs Top

manuel-rubio
There was some time when I started thinking about giving a boost to Lambdapad, the initiative from @garretsmith in Erlang that I loved wa...
New
Agostinho1965
Hey everyone — I’m putting together a practical, code-first book on building production-ready business applications with Phoenix LiveView...
New
andreasronge
You set up environments, each with its own tools, its own data and its own limits, and programs get evaluated in them. The same program r...
New

Other Trending Topics Top

GenericJam
Edit: 2026 May 15 - This post is archived. Mob is alive!! Main docs: mob v0.7.11 — Documentation A bit of explanation for the slightly c...
New
JesseHerrick
Hey, I’m Jesse and I’m the main contributor behind Dexter, a full-featured, lightning-fast Elixir LSP optimized for large codebases. It s...
New
mudasobwa
I am happy to introduce the very α version of the new programming language compiled to BEAM. Welcome Cure. It has literally three kille...
New
garrison
Hobbes is a low-level distributed database for the Elixir programming language. Hobbes provides a simple, safe, and scalable storage lay...
New
mhanberg
Hi everyone! The first release candidate for the Expert language server project is now available! We’ve published a press release detai...
New
budgie
A little off-topic, but I feel like people here have a good head on their shoulders. I used to be quite good at making software. Was luc...
New

We're in Beta

About us Mission Statement

Options

Thread Display Mode




Thread Preview

Skip Thread Previews