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GJSify

Development Setup

This page is for contributors working on the GJSify monorepo itself. If you just want to use GJSify in your own project, head to Getting Started instead.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”
  • GJS 1.86+ (GNOME 49+)
  • Node.js 24+ (only for node: runtime parity testing; not required for install/build/publish)
  • GNOME development libraries: glib2-devel, gobject-introspection-devel, gtk4-devel, libsoup3-devel, vala, blueprint-compiler

On Fedora:

Terminal
sudo dnf install gjs gtk4-devel glib2-devel gobject-introspection-devel libsoup3-devel vala blueprint-compiler

The monorepo bootstraps from the published gjsify (ADR 0002) — no yarn, no Corepack, no Node-only npm CLI, and no committed bundle in the checkout. install.mjs downloads the release asset, verifies its SHA-256 and caches it by digest.

Use the FULL install.mjs, not --fetch-only: only the full mode runs gjsify install -g @gjsify/cli, which puts @gjsify/tsc beside the CLI. On a host with no Node that global copy is the only thing gjsify tsc can resolve, and build:infra starts with a gjsify tsc.

Clone and build

Section titled “Clone and build”
Terminal
git clone https://github.com/gjsify/gjsify.git
cd gjsify


# Fetch + install the published gjsify (no yarn / Node required)
gjs -m install.mjs


# Install this checkout's dependencies with it
gjsify install --immutable


# Build the toolchain the rest of the repo is built with
gjsify run build:infra


# From here on, `gjsify` is on $PATH via node_modules/.bin
PATH="$PWD/node_modules/.bin:$PATH"


# Build all packages
gjsify run build


# Run the full test suite on Node.js and GJS
gjsify run test

Common commands

Section titled “Common commands”
Terminal
gjsify run build      # Build every workspace package
gjsify run build:node # Only the Node.js targets
gjsify run build:web  # Only the Web API targets
gjsify run check      # Type-check all packages
gjsify run test       # Run tests on Node.js and GJS
gjsify run clear      # Remove all build outputs

Per-package workflows follow the same pattern:

Terminal
cd packages/node/fs
gjsify run build:gjsify     # Build the package
gjsify run build:test:gjs   # Build the GJS test bundle
gjsify run test:gjs         # Run tests under GJS
gjsify run test:node        # Run the same tests under Node.js

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”
  • Architecture — monorepo structure, build system and GNOME library mappings
  • TDD Workflow — how to port a new Node.js or Web API to GJS test-first