Build from Source

Barn 0.9.0 is an unreleased candidate. Use this page to build and check the source. Installation commands for the eventual release are in the Quick Start.

Choose the source

Clone the Barn repository:

git clone https://github.com/pgsty/barn.git
cd barn

Do not assume a v0.9.0 tag exists before publication. Check the source identity and working-tree changes first; go.mod must name github.com/pgsty/barn and the command source must live in cmd/barn:

git log -1 --oneline
git status --short

Build

The reviewed candidate tree pins Go 1.27.1 in go.mod and packaging/toolchain.env. You also need Git, Make, Bash, and standard build tools. QEMU and privileged network setup are needed to run VMs, not to compile the CLI. From the selected checkout:

make build
export PATH="$PWD/bin:$PATH"
barn version

make build writes the matching barn and barn-hosts-helper binaries under the Git-ignored bin/ directory. Do not mix the two binaries across commits or releases. Development builds report dev by default; their commit field identifies a clean source revision or says uncommitted for a dirty checkout. The version string alone does not prove candidate behavior.

Keep the inventory in a separate lab directory. This does not isolate Barn state: if you already have a deployment, inspect it before running up:

mkdir -p ~/barn-lab && cd ~/barn-lab
barn setup
barn up

Complete checks

The complete checks also need Python 3, jq, a working C toolchain for race tests, and the pinned quality tools. Install the versions used by the reviewed candidate’s CI (check CONTRIBUTING.md and packaging/toolchain.env again when using another revision):

go install honnef.co/go/tools/cmd/staticcheck@v0.8.1
go install golang.org/x/tools/cmd/deadcode@v0.49.0
go install github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/v2/cmd/golangci-lint@v2.13.2
go install golang.org/x/vuln/cmd/govulncheck@v1.7.0

Ensure the Go tools installation directory (GOBIN, or $(go env GOPATH)/bin when unset) is in PATH. Before submitting a source change, run:

make check

This gate includes module verification, shell syntax, maintenance ownership, unit and race tests, Vet, Staticcheck, four-target dead-code checks, errcheck, vulnerability checks, cross-builds, image-pipeline and installer tests, and dependency-license verification. CI separately checks formatting, whitespace, pinned tool versions, and GoReleaser configuration. Changes to packaging also need a verified packaging snapshot.

A passing source gate is not package publication or a native VM lifecycle replay; make image-pipeline-native-test is a separate native image gate. That gate requires the explicit image inputs documented at the top of tests/image-pipeline-native-test.sh; it does not download a test image.

See Engineering for release tooling, dependency licenses, and validation boundaries.