Host requirements

Host requirements help consumers explain missing dependencies before a user tries to run the tool. They describe what must already be available; they do not tell a package manager what to install.

Detect shared libraries

create reads shared-library dependencies from supported executables and records them as requires.libs, excluding baseline system libraries and libraries supplied by the artifact itself. --no-libs disables this scan. An empty list means the scan found no additional libraries; an absent list means no result is available.

Declare commands the program needs with --require bin:java@17. Use per-artifact TOML requires for os_min and glibc_min; a Linux glibc requirement should not become a Windows default. Requirements use loader or command names, such as libssl.so.3 and java, rather than distribution package names. Consumers decide how to resolve them.

Set requirements per artifact

Keep platform-specific requirements on the artifact they describe:

[[artifact]]
path = "dist/mytool-1.2.3-linux-x64.tar.gz"
bin = ["mytool"]
requires = { glibc_min = "2.31", bin = [{ name = "java", min = "17" }] }

[[artifact]]
path = "dist/mytool-1.2.3-darwin-arm64.tar.gz"
bin = ["mytool"]
requires = { os_min = "12", bin = [{ name = "java", min = "17" }] }

Top-level requires supplies defaults. An artifact’s own requires replaces the default object, so repeat any shared requirements it still needs. Library scanning supplies detected library requirements unless --no-libs disables it.

Only declare commands the software needs to work. Optional integrations belong in extensions; executables shipped by the release do not belong in requires.bin.

Understand consumer behavior

Requirement	If the host does not meet it
Shared library, minimum glibc, or minimum OS version	Refuse installation because the executable cannot start; a user may override the refusal.
Required command or its minimum version	Install with a warning naming the missing or outdated command.
A requirement the consumer cannot check	Warn instead of guessing.

Consumers select an artifact first, then check its requirements. Requirements do not resolve a selection tie or silently choose another build. Numeric versions compare by component: 2.10 is newer than 2.9, and 17 is equivalent to 17.0.0. Unrecognized version formats produce an unknown result.

See the specification for the complete rules and release recipes for example layouts.