Shell options: set and shopt

Two YAML fields that map directly to the bash builtins of the same names. Use them to enable shell-level safety flags or non-default behaviors per task, per cmd, or for the whole Ritefile.

set: — POSIX shell options

These are the flags you'd otherwise enable with set -o pipefail, set -e, set -u. The most useful one in a Ritefile is pipefail:

version: '3'

set: [pipefail]

tasks:
  release:
    cmds:
      - go build ./... | tee build.log

Without pipefail, the cmd's exit status is the exit status of tee (almost always 0). With it, a go build failure propagates through the pipe and the task fails.

Multiple options stack:

set: [pipefail, errexit, nounset]

pipefail is the one you actually want for catching errors. errexit is on by default in rite cmds; nounset causes more friction than it's worth in templated cmds.

shopt: — bash-specific options

These mirror shopt -s name. The most useful: globstar, which makes ** match any number of directory levels in shell globs:

version: '3'

shopt: [globstar]

tasks:
  fmt:
    cmds:
      - gofmt -w **/*.go        # without globstar, ** = single dir

Other useful options: nullglob (unmatched globs expand to nothing instead of staying literal), extglob (extended glob patterns), failglob (unmatched globs fail the cmd).

Three scopes

set: and shopt: can each appear in three places:

Scope	Where	Applies to
Top-level Ritefile	Right under version:	Every cmd in every task
Task	Inside a task definition	Every cmd in that task
Cmd	Inside a single cmd entry	Just that one cmd

Each scope is additive — task-level adds to global, cmd-level adds to both. There's no scope-overrides-scope behavior; the union of all three applies.

version: '3'
set: [pipefail]                     # global
shopt: [globstar]                   # global

tasks:
  cleanup:
    set: [errexit]                  # adds to global; this task gets pipefail + errexit
    cmds:
      - cmd: rm -rf build/**/*.tmp
        shopt: [nullglob]           # adds again; this cmd gets globstar + nullglob

This composability is on purpose: a strict global default plus per-cmd opt-ins for niche behavior.

When to reach for which

• Task fails silently when a piped command errors: add set: [pipefail] globally.
• Globs that should descend into subdirectories: add shopt: [globstar] to the task or globally.
• Globs that may match nothing without failing: add shopt: [nullglob] to the cmd or task.
• Cmd uses $UNDEFINED_VAR and you want loud failures: add set: [nounset] to the cmd. (Don't put it globally — too much friction.)

Bash, not POSIX

shopt is bash-specific. If your environment uses a non-bash shell as /bin/sh, shopt options are ignored — rite invokes cmds via the shell library that supports bash-style features regardless. set: options are POSIX and work in any shell.