pants

pants [options] goal [targets...]

pants is a scalable build system for monorepos. It supports Python, Go, Java, Scala, Shell, and Docker.Target notation uses colons to separate path and target name. Double colons (::) match all targets recursively.Caching and memoization make repeated builds fast. Remote caching enables team-wide build sharing.Dependency inference automatically discovers imports. Explicit dependencies can be declared in BUILD files.Fine-grained invalidation rebuilds only affected targets. Concurrent execution uses available cores.

list

List matching targets.

Run tests for matching test targets.

Format source files in-place using configured formatters.

Run lint checks on matching targets.

Run type/compilation checks (e.g. mypy, javac).

Build deployable artifacts (wheels, pex, jars, docker images).

Run an executable target.

Publish deployable artifacts to a remote registry.

Show the transitive dependencies of a target.

Show targets that depend on the given target.

List all root targets that match.

Print detailed metadata about matching targets.

Start an interactive REPL preloaded with the specified targets.

Auto-generate or update BUILD files.

Apply deprecation fixes to existing BUILD files.

Limit targets to those changed since the given git ref.

Include dependents of changed targets (none, direct, transitive).

Log level (trace, debug, info, warn, error).

Keep the execution sandbox for debugging (always, onfailure, never_).

Disable the local or remote build cache for the run.

Requires BUILD files defining targets. Initial setup has learning curve. Large codebase initial run can be slow.

Pants was originally developed at Twitter around 2011. Version 2.x was a ground-up rewrite focusing on Python ergonomics. Now maintained by Toolchain as an open-source project.

bazel(1), buck(1), make(1), gradle(1)