A recipe is the whole box spec, written declaratively. dabs ships five generic
ones; anything project- or tool-specific is yours to add.
Screens verified by tests/test_recipes.py.
The bundled five
| recipe | what it does |
|---|
sh | shell in a clean box over your current directory (live mount) |
wt | cut a git worktree, no box |
wtbox | shell in a clean box over a fresh git worktree |
scratch | copy the cwd into a directory node, no box |
scratchbox | shell in a clean box over a throwaway copy of the cwd |
dabs recipes --print dumps the bundled YAML in full — the best starting point
for writing your own.
Write your own
Project recipes live in ./dabs.yaml; personal ones in
~/.dabs/recipes.yaml. Resolution is bundled → global → project, later
winning. This is a complete recipe:
default: hello
recipes:
hello:
description: demo box for the recipes walkthrough
image: shell
command: [sh]
env: { GREETING: hello-recipes }
sources:
- mount: .
path: /work
hello demo box for the recipes walkthrough default
scratch copy the cwd into a directory node, no box
scratchbox shell in a clean box over a throwaway copy of the cwd
sh shell in a clean box over your current directory
wt cut a worktree, no box
wtbox shell in a clean box over a fresh git worktree
Recipes provision; they don’t prompt. A recipe’s command must not bake in
agent instructions — keep prompts in the caller (or a skill) and keep the
recipe reusable.
Running one — three shapes
dabs recipe hello # a known recipe, its own command
dabs recipe hello -c 'echo hi' # a known recipe, your tokens APPENDED
dabs recipe -- echo hi # the default recipe, your command appended
command argv. Against command: [sh], dabs recipe sh -c 'echo hi' runs
sh -c 'echo hi' — but dabs recipe -- echo hi runs sh echo hi, which asks
sh to open a file named echo. Read the confirmation carefully: it always
shows the exact final command.
The confirmation
Handing a box an arbitrary command always asks first, showing the recipe, its
mounts, and the exact command:
╭────────────────────────────────────╮
│ recipe "sh" │
│ image=shell │
│ mount . → /work │
│ command: sh -c echo appended to sh │
╰────────────────────────────────────╯
┃ Proceed?
┃
┃ Yes No
running: sh -c echo appended to sh
appended to sh
✓ sh-________ removed
dabs: recipe "sh": aborted.
A typo never becomes a command
A first token that is neither -- nor a known recipe is an error, not a
command:
dabs: no recipe "nosuch" (known: scratch, scratchbox, sh, wt, wtbox) — or `dabs recipe -- nosuch` to run it as a command on the default recipe
The default: key
A registry’s default: names the recipe that dabs build, dabs recipe
(no name), and dabs recipe -- <cmd> resolve to.
A default: is not a shell. If it names an agent (say, a claude -p box),
a bare dabs recipe -- echo hi appends your argv to the agent’s command
line. Set no default unless one recipe is the obvious “just run it” choice.
