Preboot Documentation

Welcome to the Preboot (preboot) documentation. This index links to every topic you need to understand, use, extend, or deploy the tool.

What is Preboot?

Preboot is a Go CLI that diagnoses local setup failures in Go repositories. Instead of debugging "it works on my machine" by hand, you define — or auto-generate — a YAML file listing health checks for your project, then run a single command to validate the entire environment.

preboot check

A typical run looks like:

  ██████╗ ██████╗ ███████╗██████╗  ██████╗  ██████╗ ████████╗
  ██╔══██╗██╔══██╗██╔════╝██╔══██╗██╔═══██╗██╔═══██╗╚══██╔══╝
  ██████╔╝██████╔╝█████╗  ██████╔╝██║   ██║██║   ██║   ██║
  ██╔═══╝ ██╔══██╗██╔══╝  ██╔══██╗██║   ██║██║   ██║   ██║
  ██║     ██║  ██║███████╗██████╔╝╚██████╔╝╚██████╔╝   ██║
  ╚═╝     ╚═╝  ╚═╝╚══════╝╚═════╝  ╚═════╝  ╚═════╝   ╚═╝

Running Preboot Diagnostics...

✅ go-installed
✅ docker-installed
✅ env-file-exists
✅ DB_URL-configured
✅ port-free-5432
❌ API_KEY-configured — key API_KEY not found in .env
   Fix: Copy .env.example to .env and fill in missing values

5 passed, 1 failed

Documentation Index

Document	What it covers
Getting Started	Installation, first run, quick start
Configuration Reference	YAML schema, merging logic, defaults
CLI Commands	`preboot init`, `preboot check`, `preboot validate`
Check Types	All 7 check types with option reference and examples
Architecture	Package layout, data flow, extension points
Contributing	Dev setup, testing, adding new check types
Testing Guide	Full test inventory, helpers, and test patterns
Deployment Guide	Building, distributing, and shipping Preboot

Quick-reference card

# Auto-generate checks from your repo
preboot init

# Run all checks
preboot check

# Skip slow network checks
preboot check --quick

# Use a specific config file
preboot check --config path/to/preboot.yml

# Validate config syntax without running checks
preboot validate

Exit codes: 0 = all blockers passed · 1 = one or more blockers failed · 2 = internal error