Keeping Boot Up to Date

Boot consists of two parts: the boot.sh or boot.exe executable and the core libraries. The executable is a minimal shell whose purpose is to bootstrap the Maven client which then loads the core libraries from a Maven repository. The executable should be very stable and should not need to be updated.

Boot is currently alpha status, so you may need to re-download the executable from time to time until we cut a stable release.

Which Version Do I Have?

To see which version of boot you're running:

$ boot -V

#https://github.com/boot-clj/boot
#Tue Nov 04 09:36:04 EST 2014
BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION=1.6.0
BOOT_VERSION=2.0.0-pre14

The output of this command will tell you which version of the core libraries boot is currently using, and which version of Clojure. If for some reason you want to see which version of the executable you have you can do:

$ boot |head -3

Boot App Version: 2.0.0-pre14
Boot Lib Version: 2.0.0-pre14
Clojure Version:  1.6.0

The Boot App Version indicates the version of the boot executable.

Updating Boot

You can have boot fetch and use the latest release version of the core libraries:

$ boot -u

#https://github.com/boot-clj/boot
#Tue Nov 04 09:36:04 EST 2014
BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION=1.6.0
BOOT_VERSION=2.0.0-pre14

or you can go with the latest (unstable) snapshot versions:

$ BOOT_CHANNEL=DEV boot -u

#https://github.com/boot-clj/boot
#Tue Nov 04 09:36:04 EST 2014
BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION=1.6.0
BOOT_VERSION=2.0.0-pre15-SNAPSHOT

Set Version on the Command Line

You can also use environment variables to control which version of core libraries and/or Clojure boot uses:

$ BOOT_VERSION=2.0.0-pre14 BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION=1.7.0-alpha1 boot my-task other-task

This can be used to globally set the default version of boot (if you want to downgrade to a previous version, for instance):

$ BOOT_VERSION=2.0.0-pre11 boot -u

#https://github.com/boot-clj/boot
#Tue Nov 04 09:36:04 EST 2014
BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION=1.6.0
BOOT_VERSION=2.0.0-pre11

Pin Project to Specific Boot Version

You can also specify which version of the core libraries and Clojure boot will use by creating a boot.properties file in the project directory. To pin the project to the current versions:

$ boot -V > boot.properties

or to a specific version, as above:

BOOT_VERSION=2.0.0-pre11 boot -V > boot.properties