Running tasks

Run a task by giving its name:

hobnob ask-trivia

You can run it from anywhere in your project. hobnob looks for hobnob.yml in the current directory, then in each parent directory in turn, and uses the first one it finds.

Picking a task

Run hobnob on its own and you don't need to remember any task names. It opens a menu of every task, with its info:, and you pick one.

If the taskfile has a task called default, bare hobnob runs that instead. These flags help either way:

hobnob --list     # print every task, with its info:
hobnob --select   # open the menu, even when there's a default task

Passing variables

Write NAME=value after the task name to set a variable for the run:

hobnob ask-trivia CATEGORY=science COUNT=3

A value passed this way:

• overrides the taskfile's defaults, but not its constants (see Which value wins).
• answers a prompt for the same name, so the prompt is skipped. That's how a task that asks questions can run in a script (see Running without prompts).
• is always text, even when it looks like JSON (see Text that looks like JSON).

Using another taskfile

--file runs a task from a specific file instead of the nearest hobnob.yml:

hobnob --file ops/trivia.yml ask-trivia

The CLI reference lists every flag.

Rules

• hobnob looks for hobnob.yml, then hobnob.yaml, in each directory.
• Commands run in the taskfile's directory, wherever you ran hobnob from (see Running in another directory).
• Without a terminal, there's no menu. When hobnob's input isn't a terminal or CI is set, bare hobnob prints the help and the task list instead, and --select prints the task list. --select --no-input does the same.
• Every argument after the task name must be NAME=value or --no-input. Anything else is an error.