CLI Commands

Merlin exposes a CLI for project scaffolding, building, testing and cleaning.

Commands

all

Compiles the framework or project.

• Usage: merlin all
• Description: Scans the src/ directory recursively for all .c files, compiles them independently and links the object files into the final binary.
• Output: Produces an executable in the bin/ directory.

test

Executes the sanitizer test suite.

• Usage: merlin test
• Description: Links the sources in the tests/ directory with the project’s source files and compiles them with memory and undefined behavior sanitizers enabled (-fsanitize=address,undefined,leak).
• Output: Executes bin/test_executable and outputs the test results.

• CAUTION

  Caveats Requires a zero exit code from ASan (exit code 1), UBSan (exit code 1) and LSan (exit code 23). Memory leaks will cause the pipeline to crash.

run

Builds and launches the executable.

• Usage: merlin run
• Description: Automatically triggers the all command to compile the executable if necessary, then immediately launches it via a child process.
• Output: Streams the standard output and standard error of the child process.

clean

Removes build artifacts.

• Usage: merlin clean
• Description: Recursively deletes the obj/ and bin/ directories, ensuring a fresh state for the next build.
• Output: Removes directories and their contents.

init

Scaffolds a standard project structure in the current directory.

• Usage: merlin init
• Description: Generates src/main.c, tests/test_main.c, .gitignore and compile_flags.txt in the current working directory.
• Output: Project scaffolding files.

new

Creates a new directory and scaffolds the project structure inside it.

• Usage: merlin new <project_name>
• Description: Creates a directory with the given name and performs the equivalent of merlin init inside it.
• Output: A new project folder containing the scaffolded files.