Installation

Shellac has no build step and no package manager dependency. Clone it, source it once, run shellac init.

No dodgy curl | bash invocations!

Quick install¶

# System-wide (requires sudo for the clone)
sudo git clone https://github.com/rawiriblundell/shellac /opt/shellac
source /opt/shellac/bin/shellac
shellac init

shellac init detects whether /etc/profile.d/ is writable and configures a system-wide or per-user install accordingly. It reports every change it makes and is idempotent — safe to run again.

Example output (system-wide):

shellac init: detected clone at /opt/shellac
shellac init: /etc/profile.d/ is writable — system-wide install
shellac init: created /etc/profile.d/00-shellac.sh
shellac init: added PATH entry to /etc/profile.d/00-shellac.sh
shellac init: added SH_LIBPATH to /etc/profile.d/00-shellac.sh
shellac init: 3 change(s) made — reload with: source /etc/profile.d/00-shellac.sh

Example output (per-user, no root):

shellac init: detected clone at /home/user/.local/share/shellac
shellac init: /etc/profile.d/ is not writable — per-user install
shellac init: target file: /home/user/.bashrc
shellac init: added PATH entry to /home/user/.bashrc
shellac init: added SH_LIBPATH to /home/user/.bashrc
shellac init: 2 change(s) made — reload with: source /home/user/.bashrc

Manual setup¶

If you prefer to configure the environment yourself rather than running shellac init:

System-wide¶

sudo git clone https://github.com/rawiriblundell/shellac /opt/shellac

Create /etc/profile.d/00-shellac.sh:

export PATH="/opt/shellac/bin:${PATH}"
export SH_LIBPATH="/opt/shellac/lib/sh"

/etc/profile.d/ files are sourced by login shells on most Linux distributions (AlmaLinux, RHEL, Ubuntu, Debian). The 00- prefix ensures shellac loads before any profile.d scripts that might use it.

Re-login or source /etc/profile.d/00-shellac.sh to activate in the current shell.

Per-user¶

git clone https://github.com/rawiriblundell/shellac "${HOME}/.local/share/shellac"

Add to ~/.bashrc:

export PATH="${HOME}/.local/share/shellac/bin:${PATH}"
export SH_LIBPATH="${HOME}/.local/share/shellac/lib/sh"

Then reload:

source ~/.bashrc

Development clone¶

If you want to work on shellac itself or pin to a specific commit, clone wherever is convenient and point your shell at it:

git clone https://github.com/rawiriblundell/shellac ~/git/shellac

# In ~/.bashrc or a project-specific env file
export PATH="${HOME}/git/shellac/bin:${PATH}"
export SH_LIBPATH="${HOME}/git/shellac/lib/sh"

bin/shellac self-locates lib/sh relative to its own path using BASH_SOURCE[0], so it works correctly from any clone location without any path configuration — the SH_LIBPATH export just skips the runtime discovery scan.

Verify the install¶

source shellac
shellac modules

source shellac works because bash searches PATH for bare names with no slash. If shellac is found and loads correctly, shellac modules lists all available modules. If it fails, check:

# Is bin/ on PATH?
command -v shellac

# Where is SH_LIBPATH pointing?
printf '%s\n' "${SH_LIBPATH}"

# Does lib/sh exist there?
ls "${SH_LIBPATH}"

Keeping up to date¶

git -C /opt/shellac pull        # system-wide
git -C ~/.local/share/shellac pull   # per-user

No rebuild needed after a pull.

Adding a custom library path¶

If you maintain local shellac libraries outside the main repo, register the path rather than modifying the clone:

shellac add-libpath /opt/local/lib/sh

This appends the path to ~/.config/shellac/paths.conf, which is read during discovery on every subsequent source shellac. To remove it:

shellac rm-libpath /opt/local/lib/sh