Make your projects' metatooling accessible to as many potential contributors as possible.

Does your project rely on things like test harnesses, build steps, or homegrown tooling? Consider using triple scripts.

Triple scripts are easy to write, easy to read, and easy to run.

What they are

Triple scripts are meant to live inside your project's repo and are:

  • Self-contained
    Triple scripts are single-file programs and are fully functional for offline, local use; they do not rely on any magical directory structure, nor do they involve late-binding against libraries dynamically fetched over the network or installed from an external package registry
  • Homologous
    Triple scripts are written so you can double-click to open a graphical UI, or you can run the same program from the terminal, to accommodate all persons and their preferred way to work in the circumstances of the moment
  • Automorphic
    Triple scripts adhere to the "package distribution is source distribution" principle, and the object file format is designed for non-destructive compilation; the text-based file format ensures that you and any potential contributors can open the programs in a text editor to read, understand, and and make ad-hoc changes—just as readily as with any tooling based on the POSIX shell, Python, etc.

    • Why they're worth adopting

    Should contributing to your project—or even merely using it—really require your collaborators to perform some preliminary ritual like downloading and configuring additional software packages?

    Because triple scripts run everywhere, adopting them means anyone can get started right away, from anywhere—regardless of what kind of development ecosystem that person does or doesn't normally inhabit. When a project adopts triple scripts, obtaining a source code archive or cloning the project repo is the only setup step.

    Check out an example project that uses triple scripts, or read about how triple scripts work.

    Our mission

    triplescripts.org is on a mission to eliminate "implicit step 0" from software development. Right now, working towards that goal means building and shipping tools. Our main focus is on:

    You can browse all of our releases at releases.triplescripts.org.