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Faster bootstrap runs without changing what a profile installs

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
42/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
docker, shell
Domain
build-system

Research direction

Start by reading build/tart/vm run and install/brew, which the issue names as the VM launch and brew installation entry points. Check how profile sets are selected and how the checkout is mounted, then trace the bootstrap loop for mise, runtimes, and nix. Done means the allowed brew sets install in one bundle call, the host cache is reused, and a fresh run still proves the complete profile works.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

A full headless run spends most of its time in the brew step. Almost all of that time goes to downloading bottles. The previous run already downloaded the same bottles into a VM that was then thrown away.

The profile cut is right and should not be trimmed further. The laptop needs gcc, llvm, pandoc, and tectonic, so the VM must install them too. The time can be recovered elsewhere.

  1. Share Homebrew's download cache from the host. build/tart/vm run already mounts the checkout. A second mount, read-write, can hold the cache. HOMEBREW_CACHE inside the guest points at it. Bottles then download once per host instead of once per VM, and a reset VM pours from cache. This is the biggest win, and it changes nothing about the result.

  2. One bundle call per run. install/brew bundles set by set so that a profile can omit some sets. Bundle fetches every download for one call in parallel. Twelve calls therefore mean twelve serial fetch phases. The installer can generate a temporary Brewfile that includes only the allowed sets and run one brew bundle against it. The per-set omission survives, and the run gets one fetch phase.

  3. Homebrew environment for the run. The bootstrap can set HOMEBREW_NO_AUTO_UPDATE, HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_CLEANUP, and HOMEBREW_NO_ENV_HINTS for its own process. Those three stop the repeated update checks, the cleanup passes between calls, and the hint noise in the log. The installer still runs brew update once, explicitly.

  4. A checkpoint VM for the loop, never for the proof. tart clone of a VM stopped right after the brew step gives a starting point for iterating on mise, runtimes, and nix in minutes. The fresh run stays the only evidence that the whole thing works. This checkpoint would have shortened the last four iterations considerably.

Dominant language
Shell
Stars
1
Forks
0
Avg merge
14h 36m
Merged PRs (30d)
3

Getting set up

  • No Dockerfile or Docker Compose file
  • Has a pull request template
  • No contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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