radius-build-cli

name	radius-build-cli
description	Build the Radius CLI (rad) binary from source. Use when compiling rad, cross-compiling for another platform, creating a debug build, or verifying the CLI builds correctly after code changes.
argument-hint	Optional: build variant (e.g. debug, linux-amd64) — or leave blank for default release build

Build Radius CLI

Build the rad CLI binary from source using the project's Makefile build system.

Overview

The Radius CLI (rad) is a Go binary located at cmd/rad/main.go. The build system uses GNU Make with build configuration split across files in the build/ directory. The primary build targets are defined in build/build.mk and version information is injected via linker flags defined in build/version.mk.

Build Outputs

Binaries are written to ./dist/<GOOS>_<GOARCH>/<buildtype>/rad where:

• <GOOS> is the target operating system (e.g., darwin, linux, windows)
• <GOARCH> is the target architecture (e.g., amd64, arm64)
• <buildtype> is release (default) or debug (when DEBUG=1)

Procedure

Step 1: Verify Prerequisites

Confirm the following tools are available before building:

1. Go: Run go version to verify Go is installed. The required version is specified in go.mod.
2. Make: Run make --version to verify GNU Make is available.
3. Git: Run git rev-parse --is-inside-work-tree to confirm we are in a Git repository (needed for version injection).

If any prerequisite is missing, stop and report clearly which tool needs to be installed.

Step 2: Detect Target Platform

Determine the build target platform:

• Run go env GOOS to detect the current OS.
• Run go env GOARCH to detect the current architecture.

Report the detected platform to the user (e.g., darwin/arm64).

Step 3: Build the CLI

Build the rad binary using the Makefile:

make build-rad

This compiles only the rad CLI binary for the current OS and architecture. Version metadata (commit SHA, Git version, release channel, chart version) is injected automatically via -ldflags.

Build variants:

Command	Description
make build-rad	Build rad for the current platform (release mode)
DEBUG=1 make build-rad	Build rad with debug symbols (-gcflags "all=-N -l")
make build-rad-<os>-<arch>	Cross-compile for a specific platform (e.g., make build-rad-linux-amd64)
make build	Build all binaries, packages, and Bicep tooling

Use make build-rad unless the user explicitly requests a different target, debug build, or cross-compilation.

Step 4: Verify the Build

After the build completes successfully:

1. Confirm the binary exists at the expected output path:

   ls -lh ./dist/$(go env GOOS)_$(go env GOARCH)/release/rad
   

   If DEBUG=1 was used, check ./dist/$(go env GOOS)_$(go env GOARCH)/debug/rad instead.

2. Run the built binary to verify it executes:

   ./dist/$(go env GOOS)_$(go env GOARCH)/release/rad version
   

3. Report the build results:

   • Binary path and size
   • Version information from rad version output
   • Build mode (release or debug)

Step 5: Report Result

Summarize the build:

Build complete!
Binary: ./dist/<os>_<arch>/<buildtype>/rad
Version: <version output>

Quick Reference

Goal	Command
Build rad (current platform)	make build-rad
Debug build	DEBUG=1 make build-rad
Cross-compile	make build-rad-<os>-<arch>
Build everything	make build