I'm very happy that you are reading this page! Grate needs all the contributors it can get! I'll try to jot down a few notes on how to get started developing grate.
Grate is built with .NET 6/7/8 (and probably soon .NET 9). You can get it here and start building right away.
.NET 6+ runs on Windows, macOS or Linux. You choose what you like to use for development.
Grate uses docker extensively for testing against different databases, so you need to get it from e.g. The docker website, or you can probably use a package manager on your platform to install it.
git clone https://github.com/erikbra/grate.git
> cd grate
> dotnet test --framework net7.0
Grate is set up to build in the whole .NET framework in the executable when built in release mode, so the executable is a bit bigger than you
might expect. But it's totally independent of .NET being installed on the runtime environment at all, and not of the versions actually installed either.
You can build a self-contained executable just using dotnet build (example from my mac below)
> cd grate/grate
> dotnet publish -c release -r osx-x64 -o /tmp/grate
Find the fully independent executable, and the noticable size:
> ls -lh /tmp/grate
total 59808
-rwxr-xr-x 1 erik staff 29M Sep 14 23:22 grate
Verify that the executable is working:
> /tmp/grate/grate
Option '--connectionstring' is required.
Description:
The new grate - sql for the 20s
Usage:
grate [options]
Options:
--database <database> OBSOLETE: Please specify the connection string instead
-c, -cs, --connectionstring, --connstring <connectionstring> (REQUIRED) You now provide an entire connection string. ServerName and Database are obsolete.
-f, --files, --sqlfilesdirectory <sqlfilesdirectory> The directory where your SQL scripts are [default: .]
-o, --output, --outputPath <outputPath> This is where everything related to the migration is stored. This includes any
backups, all items that ran, permission dumps, logs, etc. [default:
/Users/erik/.local/share/grate]
-s, --instance, --server, --servername <servername> OBSOLETE: Please specify the connection string instead.
-a, -acs, -csa, --adminconnectionstring, --adminconnstring The connection string for connecting to master, if you want to create the database.
<adminconnectionstring>
--accesstoken <accesstoken> Access token to be used for logging in to SQL Server / Azure SQL Database.
-ct, --commandtimeout <commandtimeout> This is the timeout when commands are run. This is not for admin commands or
restore. [default: 60]
-cta, --admincommandtimeout <admincommandtimeout> This is the timeout when administration commands are run (except for restore, which
has its own). [default: 300]
--databasetype, --dbt, --dt <mariadb|oracle|postgresql|sqlserver> Tells grate what type of database it is running on. [default: sqlserver]
--schemaversion <schemaversion> Specify the version directly.
-t, --transaction, --trx <transaction> Run the migration in a transaction
--env, --environment <environment> Run for only a certain environment (can be specified multiple times to run for more
environments)
--sc, --schema, --schemaname <schemaname> The schema to use for the migration tables [default: grate]
-ni, --noninteractive, --silent Silent - tells grate not to ask for any input when it runs.
-v, --verbose Verbose output
--version Show version information
-?, -h, --help Show help and usage information
I really like Jetbrains Rider, but it does cost money. Free alternatives are e.g. Visual Studio Code (free, and cross platform), or Visual Studio Community Edition. Use what you love, and start hacking :)