dax - Cross-platform shell tools for Node.js

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2024-02-09 15:30:04

This is similar and inspired by zx, but because it uses a cross-platform shell with common built-in cross-platform commands, more code is going to work the same way on different operating systems.

Initially, I wrote dax for Deno because Deno is by far the best JavaScript runtime for single file scripting—all dependencies can be expressed in the script file itself including npm dependencies; there's no node_modules folder (less clutter), and no separate install command necessary.

Nowadays, Node.js has improved in its support for Web APIs and improvements to dnt (a tool I created for building Deno modules for Node) have made maintaining a Node.js distribution much easier.

Part of what kicked off my desire to create a Node.js distribution for dax was the release of Bun's shell, which credits dax as a source of inspiration.

I want to explain why I think this and it would be interesting to hear your feedback. Note these are my personal opinions and not the opinions of the Deno team (which I'm a member, but dax is a personal project I work on in my personal time).

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