shards

shards command [options] [args]

shards is the official dependency manager for the Crystal programming language, similar to Bundler for Ruby or npm for JavaScript. It reads project dependencies from a shard.yml file that defines package metadata, version constraints, and development dependencies.Dependencies are resolved from Git repositories, with GitHub being the most common source. The shard.lock file pins exact versions to ensure reproducible builds across environments. The build command compiles Crystal projects and places executables in the bin/ directory, while install and update manage the dependency lifecycle.

--production

Skip development dependencies and only use locked versions.

Skip development dependencies during install.

Skip running postinstall scripts.

Skip installing executables.

Decrease log verbosity, printing only warnings and errors.

Increase log verbosity.

Number of parallel download jobs.

Require that shard.lock is up to date and refuse to update it.

Do not check the Crystal version restriction in shard.yml.

shard.yml

Project-level configuration file defining name, version, dependencies, and development dependencies.

Lock file pinning exact dependency versions for reproducible builds.

install

Resolve and install dependencies into the lib folder.

Re-resolve and update all dependencies, regenerating shard.lock.

Build specified targets into the bin/ directory. Builds all if none specified.

Verify that all dependencies are installed and requirements are satisfied.

Create a default shard.yml in the current directory.

Show installed shards and their versions.

List dependencies that have newer versions available.

Print the current shard version from shard.yml.

Crystal ecosystem is smaller than Ruby or JavaScript. Some dependencies may be unmaintained. Binary compatibility can break between Crystal versions. The --frozen flag is recommended for CI builds to ensure the lock file is not modified unexpectedly.

shards is the official dependency manager for Crystal, the Ruby-like compiled language. It follows conventions familiar to Ruby developers.

crystal(1), bundler(1), cargo(1), npm(1)