Shell Commands

Shadowtree recipes use shell command strings for process execution.

shell = "bash"

[recipes.example]
cmd = '''
set -euo pipefail
echo "hello"
'''

If shell is not set, Shadowtree uses sh. Supported config shells are sh and bash; fish is supported only as a generated CLI completion shell.

Command Strings

Command strings run through the configured shell after placeholder expansion. A string that is exactly @recipe or @path:recipe invokes another recipe; other strings run in the shell.

[recipes.test]
cmd = 'go test "{pkg}" {@}'

Use Typed Arguments and placeholders for validated inputs. Put defaults in argument definitions rather than by parsing raw shell args yourself.

Shell Prelude

Top-level shell_prelude is prepended to every script command:

shell_prelude = '''
require_tool() {
	command -v "$1" >/dev/null 2>&1 || {
		echo "$1 is required" >&2
		exit 1
	}
}
'''

Recipe-level shell_prelude is appended after the top-level prelude for that recipe.

Multiline Scripts

Use multiline shell strings when a workflow needs shell functions, conditionals, pipes, or multiple statements. Shadowtree shows multiline scripts as <script> in help, completion, verbose boundaries, and log boundaries, so large scripts do not flood inspection output.

For quoting and placeholder modes, see Placeholders.