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Build System

Overview

The Wails build system is a flexible and powerful tool designed to streamline the build process for your Wails applications. It leverages Task, a task runner that allows you to define and run tasks easily. While the v3 build system is the default, Wails encourages a “bring your own tooling” approach, allowing developers to customize their build process as needed.

Learn more about how to use Task in the official documentation.

Task: The Heart of the Build System

Task is a modern alternative to Make, written in Go. It uses a YAML file to define tasks and their dependencies. In the Wails build system, Task plays a central role in orchestrating the build process.

The main Taskfile.yml is located in the project root, while platform-specific tasks are defined in build/<platform>/Taskfile.yml files. A common Taskfile.yml file in the build directory contains common tasks that are shared across platforms.

  • DirectoryProject Root
    • Taskfile.yml
    • Directorybuild
      • windows/Taskfile.yml
      • darwin/Taskfile.yml
      • linux/Taskfile.yml
      • Taskfile.yml

Taskfile.yml

The Taskfile.yml file in the project root is the main entry point for the build system. It defines the tasks and their dependencies. Here’s the default Taskfile.yml file:

version: '3'


includes:
  common: ./build/Taskfile.yml
  windows: ./build/windows/Taskfile.yml
  darwin: ./build/darwin/Taskfile.yml
  linux: ./build/linux/Taskfile.yml


vars:
  APP_NAME: "myproject"
  BIN_DIR: "bin"
  VITE_PORT: '{{.WAILS_VITE_PORT | default 9245}}'


tasks:
  build:
    summary: Builds the application
    cmds:
      - task: "{{OS}}:build"


  package:
    summary: Packages a production build of the application
    cmds:
      - task: "{{OS}}:package"


  run:
    summary: Runs the application
    cmds:
      - task: "{{OS}}:run"


  dev:
    summary: Runs the application in development mode
    cmds:
      - wails3 dev -config ./build/config.yml -port {{.VITE_PORT}}

Platform-Specific Taskfiles

Each platform has its own Taskfile, located in the platform directories beneath the build directory. These files define the core tasks for that platform. Each taskfile includes common tasks from the build/Taskfile.yml file.

Windows

Location: build/windows/Taskfile.yml

The Windows-specific Taskfile includes tasks for building, packaging, and running the application on Windows. Key features include:

  • Building with optional production flags
  • Generating .ico icon file
  • Generating Windows .syso file
  • Creating an NSIS installer for packaging

Linux

Location: build/linux/Taskfile.yml

The Linux-specific Taskfile includes tasks for building, packaging, and running the application on Linux. Key features include:

  • Building with optional production flags
  • Creating an AppImage, deb, rpm, and Arch Linux packages
  • Generating .desktop file for Linux applications

macOS

Location: build/darwin/Taskfile.yml

The macOS-specific Taskfile includes tasks for building, packaging, and running the application on macOS. Key features include:

  • Building binaries for amd64, arm64 and universal (both) architectures
  • Generating .icns icon file
  • Creating an .app bundle for distributing
  • Setting macOS-specific build flags and environment variables

Task Execution and Command Aliases

The wails3 task command is an embedded version of Taskfile, which executes the tasks defined in your Taskfile.yml.

The wails3 build and wails3 package commands are aliases for wails3 task build and wails3 task package respectively. When you run these commands, Wails internally translates them to the appropriate task execution:

  • wails3 build → wails3 task build
  • wails3 package → wails3 task package

Common Build Process

Across all platforms, the build process typically includes the following steps:

  1. Tidying Go modules
  2. Building the frontend
  3. Generating icons
  4. Compiling the Go code with platform-specific flags
  5. Packaging the application (platform-specific)

Customising the Build Process

While the v3 build system provides a solid default configuration, you can easily customise it to fit your project’s needs. By modifying the Taskfile.yml and platform-specific Taskfiles, you can:

  • Add new tasks
  • Modify existing tasks
  • Change the order of task execution
  • Integrate with other tools and scripts

This flexibility allows you to tailor the build process to your specific requirements while still benefiting from the structure provided by the Wails build system.

Development Mode

The Wails build system includes a powerful development mode that enhances the developer experience by providing live reloading and hot module replacement. This mode is activated using the wails3 dev command.

How It Works

When you run wails3 dev, the following process occurs:

  1. The command checks for an available port, defaulting to 9245 if not specified.
  2. It sets up the environment variables for the frontend dev server (Vite).
  3. It starts the file watcher using the refresh library.

The refresh library is responsible for monitoring file changes and triggering rebuilds. It uses the configuration defined under the dev_mode key in the ./build/config.yaml file. It may be configured to ignore certain directories and files, to determine which files to watch and what actions to take when changes are detected. The default configuration works pretty well, but feel free to customise it to your needs.

Configuration

Here’s an example of its structure:

dev_mode:
  root_path: .
  log_level: warn
  debounce: 1000
  ignore:
    dir:
      - .git
      - node_modules
      - frontend
      - bin
    file:
      - .DS_Store
      - .gitignore
      - .gitkeep
    watched_extension:
      - "*.go"
    git_ignore: true
  executes:
    - cmd: wails3 task common:install:frontend:deps
      type: once
    - cmd: wails3 task common:dev:frontend
      type: background
    - cmd: go mod tidy
      type: blocking
    - cmd: wails3 task build
      type: blocking
    - cmd: wails3 task run
      type: primary

This configuration file allows you to:

  • Set the root path for file watching
  • Configure logging level
  • Set a debounce time for file change events
  • Ignore specific directories, files, or file extensions
  • Define commands to execute on file changes

Customising Development Mode

You can customise the development mode experience by modifying these values in the config.yaml file.

Some ways to customise include:

  1. Changing the watched directories or files
  2. Adjusting the debounce time to control how quickly the system responds to changes
  3. Adding or modifying the execute commands to fit your project’s needs

Using a browser for development

Whilst Wails v2 fully supported the use of a browser for development, it caused a lot of confusion. Applications that would work in the browser would not necessarily work in the desktop application, as not all browser APIs are available in webviews.

For UI-focused development work, you still have the flexibility to use a browser in v3, by accessing the Vite URL at http://localhost:9245 in dev mode. This gives you access to powerful browser dev tools while working on styling and layout. Be aware that Go bindings will not work in this mode. When you’re ready to test functionality like bindings and events, simply switch to the desktop view to ensure everything works perfectly in the production environment.