machbb — mach, but better

Maintainer: Natalie (AcreetionOS)
Language: GNU Guile — for software freedom.
Part of: AcreetionOS

A modern replacement for Firefox's mach build tool, built for Acreedom (GNU IceCat fork) and AcreetionOS.

Quick Start

# Initialize a new project
machbb init my-project acreedom

# Fetch the source
machbb fetch acreedom

# Install dependencies
machbb bootstrap

# Configure the build
machbb configure

# Build with all cores
machbb build -j $(nproc)

# Run what you built
machbb run

Usage

Usage: machbb COMMAND [OPTIONS...] [ARGS...]

Core Commands:
  init [DIR] [NAME] [SOURCE]  Initialize a build project
  fetch [TYPE] [DEST]         Download Firefox/IceCat source code
  bootstrap [list|status]     Install build dependencies
  configure [OPTIONS...]      Configure the build with mozconfig
  build [-j N] [TARGETS...]   Build the project

Testing & Quality:
  test [SUITE]                Run tests
  lint [--fix]                Run linter
  check                       Verify build configuration

Package & Run:
  package                     Package the build output
  run [ARGS...]               Run the built browser

Maintenance:
  clean [--all]               Remove build artifacts
  status                      Show build status and environment
  env                         Show/set build environment variables
  profile [list|NAME]         List or apply build profiles
  patches                     Manage patches

Options:
  -j, --jobs N     Number of parallel jobs
  -q, --quiet      Suppress command output
  -n, --dry-run    Show what would be done

Requirements

• GNU Guile 3.0+ — the build tool itself
• Python 3 — for Firefox's mach build system
• Rust / Cargo — for Firefox build
• C/C++ toolchain — clang, llvm, etc.
• A Firefox/IceCat/Acreedom source tree

Features

• ✅ Single-command builds — machbb build just works
• ✅ Auto-dependency management — detects your package manager (apt/pacman/dnf)
• ✅ Multi-profile support — release, debug, profile builds
• ✅ Smart parallel builds — auto-detects core count
• ✅ Patch management — organized patches/ directory
• ✅ Source fetching — download Firefox/IceCat/Acreedom source
• ✅ Build status dashboard — see everything about your build at a glance
• ✅ Dry-run mode — see what would happen without doing it

Build Profiles

machbb profile list          # List available profiles
machbb profile release       # Optimized release build
machbb profile debug         # Debug build with symbols
machbb profile profile       # Optimized with debug symbols

Project Structure

my-project/
├── mozconfig            # Build configuration
├── patches/             # Your custom patches
│   └── *.patch
├── machbb.env           # Environment variables
├── .machbb-root         # Project root marker
├── acreedom/            # Firefox/IceCat source (after fetch)
└── obj-acreedom/        # Build output

Architecture

machbb is written entirely in GNU Guile Scheme, organized as Guile modules:

• machbb/cli.scm — Command-line interface and dispatch
• machbb/config.scm — Project initialization, mozconfig management, profiles
• machbb/build.scm — Build, configure, test, clean, status
• machbb/bootstrap.scm — Dependency installation, environment setup
• machbb/util.scm — Utilities, colors, command execution, spinner

Why GNU Guile?

• Software freedom — Guile is the GNU Project's official extension language
• Scheme simplicity — powerful macros, hygienic, elegant
• Embeddable — if Firefox ever moves to Guile for build, we're ready
• Fast enough — compiled to bytecode or native via Guile's JIT

Train on yourself

./train.sh

Collects git history, writing samples, and shell history into a training dataset for fine-tuning a language model on your personal style.

License

MIT License — see LICENSE