I built a Cargo-like build tool for C/C++

Details

External ID

47705413

Source

HN

Company

—

Product

I built a Cargo-like build tool for C/C++

Website domain

github.com

Launched

April 9, 2026

Cohort

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Upvotes

177

Upvotes percentile

0.9524421593830334

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Fetched at

Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.

Updated at

Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.

Description

I love C and C++, but setting up projects can sometimes be a pain.Every time I wanted to start something new I'd spend the first hour writing CMakeLists.txt, figuring out find_package, copying boilerplate from my last project, and googling why my library isn't linking. By the time the project was actually set up I'd lost all momentum.So, I built Craft - a lightweight build and workflow tool for C and C++. Instead of writing CMake, your project configuration goes in a simple craft.toml: [project] name = "my_app" version = "0.1.0" language = "c" c_standard = 99 [build] type = "executable" Run craft build and Craft generates the CMakeLists.txt automatically and builds your project. Want to add dependencies? That's just a simple command: craft add --git https://github.com/raysan5/raylib --links raylib craft add --path ../my_library craft add sfml Craft will clone the dependency, regenerate the CMake, and rebuild your project for you.Other Craft features: craft init - adopt an existing C/C++ project into Craft or initialize an empty directory. craft template - save any project structure as a template to be initialized later. craft gen - generate header and source files with starter boilerplate code. craft upgrade - keeps itself up to date.CMakeLists.extra.cmake for anything that Craft does not yet handle.Cross platform - macOS, Linux, Windows.It is still early (I just got it to v1.0.0) but I am excited to be able to share it and keep improving it.Would love feedback. Please also feel free to make pull requests if you want to help with development!

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