rbxts-build

An opinionated build orchestrator for roblox-ts

Usage

Requires Node.js v14 or later.

rbxts-build works by creating several scripts inside of your package.json file's "scripts" object.

You can use rbxts-build init to automatically setup these scripts for you. It's often useful to do the following when setting up a new roblox-ts project:

• rbxtsc init

• npm install -D rbxts-build

• npx rbxts-build init

• compile

  • rbxtsc --verbose

• build

  • rojo build --output game.rbxl

• open

  • Launches Roblox Studio with game.rbxl

• start

  • npm run compile
  • npm run build
  • npm run open

• stop

  • Force kills the Roblox Studio process

• sync

  • rojo build --output game.rbxl
  • Uses lune to generate a src/services.d.ts file for indexing existing children in roblox-ts.
    • Refer to this guide for more information

These scripts should be structured in your package.json file as:

"scripts": {
	"build": "rbxts-build build",
	"open": "rbxts-build open",
	"start": "rbxts-build start",
	"stop": "rbxts-build stop",
	"sync": "rbxts-build sync"
},

From there, you can use npm start, to launch your project.

Once you've started working, it's convenient to use npm restart (or npm res for short) to run npm stop and then npm start.

Settings

rbxts-build allows for a few settings in package.json under a "rbxts-build" key:

"rbxts-build": {
	// override arguments to rbxtsc, default provided below
	"rbxtscArgs": ["--verbose"],
	// override arguments to rojo build, default provided below
	"rojoBuildArgs": ["--output", "game.rbxl"],
	// provide a relative file location for the sync command output, default provided below
	"syncLocation": "src/services.d.ts",
	// use rbxtsc-dev instead of rbxtsc, default provided below
	"dev": false,
	// WSL-only, use .exe versions of rojo and lune, default provided below
	"wslUseExe": false,
	// run `rbxtsc -w` + `rojo serve` automatically after Studio opens, default provided below
	"watchOnOpen": true,
},

Hooks

You can run scripts before and after any rbxts-build script by adding new package.json scripts with pre- or post- suffixes.

For example:

"precompile": "echo 'pre-build command'",
"postcompile": "echo 'post-build command'",

npm will execute this as:

1. precompile
2. compile
3. postcompile

Assumptions

rbxts-build assumes a few things about your project's structure:

• Project must be a game which is fully managed by Rojo
• Scripts are run from your project directory (where package.json lives)