The Cook Manual
The complete guide to the Cookfile language and the cook CLI. This is the friendly, read-top-to-bottom reference; the Cook Standard is the authoritative formal specification, and where the two disagree, the Standard wins. Every Cookfile snippet below is real v1.0 syntax.
The manual13 chapters · read in order
Read it top to bottom
Every Cookfile snippet is real v1.0 syntax. About an hour.
Chapter 1Installation
cook is a single Rust binary with a bundled Lua runtime and a bundled LuaRocks. No package manager to fight, no system Lua to match, no separate…
Chapter 2Your first recipe
cook init drops a minimal starter Cookfile and a .gitignore. The Cookfile is deliberately…
Chapter 3Gather and the cook step
Real builds have a shape: take input files, transform each, produce outputs, don't redo the transform if nothing changed. gather and cook describe exactly…
Chapter 4Connecting recipes
When one recipe's command reads another recipe's artifact, say so in the…
Chapter 5Tests
A test step checks the things a cook step produced. It declares no outputs; its exit code is the verdict. A test inherits the preceding cook step's outputs as…
Chapter 6Chores
Recipes build files. Chores are for everything else: clean the tree, run the formatter, deploy, open a picker. They have no gathered inputs, no outputs, and no…
Chapter 7Configuration
A config block declares knobs. The base block is unnamed; named overlays are applied on top with @name at invocation. Values are declared on the var sink…
Chapter 8Probes and data-driven fan-out
A probe is a named observation that the build graph can see: the output of a shell command, the contents of a JSON file, a recorded tool identity, a Lua…
Chapter 9Caching and cache trust
The cache is cook's center of gravity. Every cacheable unit (a step with at least one declared output) has exactly one content-addressed key, computed from…
Chapter 10Dropping into Lua
Most Cookfiles are pure surface syntax. Underneath, every Cookfile compiles to Lua, and you can reach for that API when the surface can't express what you…
Chapter 11Modules and composition
Two complementary…
Chapter 12The cook CLI
cook --help is the source of truth; this is the friendly…
Chapter 13Where to go next
The Cook Standard is the authoritative language and execution specification (RFC-2119, with a formal grammar appendix). The runnable examples are arranged in…
Guidesshow, don't tell
A Cookfile in sixty seconds
The whole language on six slides: recipe, gather, cook, placeholders, seal, chore. Press present.
GuideFrom declaration to execution
What happens between saving a Cookfile and the first cache hit: lower, register, build the graph, execute what is ready.
GuideWatch the cache work
A five-node recipe, run three times: cold, fully cached, and after one edit. Real output, replayed.
Modulesone use line per ecosystem · the index
cook_cc
Cook C-family (C + C++) native build module. Provides step-contributor target makers (cc.bin / cc.lib / cc.shared / cc.headers) called inside a recipe body,…
.NET · 0.5.0-1cook_dotnet
cook_dotnet delegates project evaluation and compilation to the .NET SDK. workspace caches restore separately and rebuilds only changed projects and target…
pnpm workspaces · 0.11.0-1cook_pnpm
Cook blessed module for pnpm-driven JS/TS monorepos. Turborepo-style task pipelines on top of Cook's content-addressed DAG — the same workspace gets remote…
Cargo · 0.1.0-1cook_rust
cook_rust turns one Cargo manifest into one portable Cook seal. Cargo remains the build scheduler; the module only derives the determinants needed to share the…
Elsewhere
The Cook Standard
The formal specification. Where the manual and the Standard disagree, the Standard wins.
rocks.usecook.comModules
cook_cc, cook_pnpm, cook_dotnet, cook_rust: the blessed index.
github.comLioraLabs/cook
Source, examples, and the manual this site is built from.
usecook.comusecook.com
Cook Cloud, Modules Pro, and build pipeline consulting.