Nicheloom visits: 58,050 all-time · 7,694 in the last 7 days

The opportunity tracker for new startups.

Today: 1,953 launches · Niche of the day: specialized calculation tools · See what launched today →

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

Get picks like this daily. Today's launch numbers, the top launches, AI and tech news, and a daily opportunity pick, straight to your inbox.

Want to reach these readers? Sponsor an issue.

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!

HN · launched Apr 9, 2026 · 177 upvotes (top 5%) · 2 views

Niche: software package managers · 51 launches, 1 in the last 7 days ▼ -89% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags

  • Horizontal
  • Dev tools
  • Developer
  • Not AI
  • Hobby / open-source project

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

Could you build this?

No Creating a viable C/C++ build system and package manager requires complex cross-platform compiler toolchain orchestration, ABI compatibility management, dependency resolution DAGs, and deep low-level system tooling expertise.

What it would actually take: A real implementation (like Cargo, Meson, or Conan) is typically written in Rust or C++. It requires building a SAT/PubGrub dependency solver, handling intricate toolchain targets across MSVC, GCC, and Clang, managing static/dynamic linking nuances, caching compilation artifacts reliably, and standardizing C/C++ packaging formats across varied OS platforms.

Discussion

20 comments analyzed.

Competitors mentioned: CMake, Make, kdesrc-build and kde-builder for KDE, xmake, Bazel/Buck

Concerns raised: Yet another C/C++ build system when existing tools already exist, Difficulty integrating with CMake-based projects as dependencies, IDE integration with generic build file formats lacking, Complexity of handling compiler quirks across platforms, Managing multi-language dependencies (Python, JS) in C/C++ context

Feature requests: Hermetic builds from local sources and git submodules, Handle compilation of resource and translation files, Simpler alternative to Bazel/Buck with ease of use, Standard TOML/INI project file format across languages and tools

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 331 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #10 of 332 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 160 days after the earliest competitor.

The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.