[Zonar]:
So while talking to my LLM/AI friend on projects to try in Zig, I came across the fact that Zig has no centralized repo/library management (which is fine). But this also meant there’s no super easy way to check if your dependencies are out of date. Granted, the most common reason is probably because Zig design favors not having dependencies to begin with.
I know most coders probably are already on github/codeberg and probably know how to use git commands, but I wanted to try a project that makes life easier.
Zonar (Zon + Sonar) is a package version seeking tool. It doesnt update, only reads what you HAVE and then looks up its source to tell you where you stand in relation. I also built in a Zig version check to make sure if you for some reason have a very old Zig that doesnt work with a very new package it’ll warn you. As always, disclaimer is I worked with Claude to write this in Zig as a study project and to see what others thing.
It works by checking against the manifest (build.zig.zon) and listed packages + URL. It requires Zig Fetch --save to be run and build a dependency list, so if you vendor or use a local path to a package, it wont be able to ‘call home’ to check a version.
https://codeberg.org/AstraLibernis/zonar/src/branch/main
Supported Zig versions
what versions are supported?
zig-0-16
AI / LLM usage disclosure
LLM crafted, Human Directed (Claude)