README
¶
sboot
The command-line tool for SourceBoot — a learn-by-building platform where you write real systems (an operating system, a database, a distributed messenger) rather than watching someone else write them.
sboot is how you work: it sets up a lab, runs the tests on your machine, and
submits a run for an official grade.
Install
curl -fsSL https://sourceboot.com/install.sh | sh
Or with Go:
go install github.com/sourceboot/sboot/cmd/sboot@latest
Binaries for linux, macOS and Windows (amd64 + arm64) are on the
releases page, with SHA256SUMS.
Use
sboot start os-rust # create your workspace and fetch the first lab's tests
sboot test 01-boot # build, boot it in QEMU, grade it — locally, offline
sboot submit 01-boot # the official run; records a verified completion
sboot where # where your repo, tests and grader live
sboot debug 04-debugging # boot frozen, waiting for a debugger on :1234
sboot version
sboot test needs the lab's own toolchain (for the OS course: rustup, nasm, qemu).
sboot --help lists every flag and environment variable.
How it works
Grading runs on your machine. sboot test builds your code, boots it, and checks
what it actually did — no upload, no network, no account needed once a lab's tests are
cached. That is why the loop is fast and works on a plane.
The grader itself is a separate program. sboot downloads sboot-judge for your
platform alongside a course's tests, checks it against a published SHA-256 before
making it executable, and runs it locally. It is not in this repository and is not
MIT — sboot where prints where it landed, and it carries its own licence. Everything
that decides what leaves your machine is here, in this repo, and readable.
sboot submit is the same checks, recorded. It grades locally first and refuses to
submit a failing run, then uploads that run for the server to judge independently. The
difference between the two commands is not what is checked — it is who computes the
verdict that goes on your record.
Two directories, on purpose. Your code lives in a git repo you own and can publish;
our tests and grader live in a separate cache directory (sboot where prints both). A
portfolio repo that is mostly someone else's harness reads as "I did a tutorial"; your
kernel plus your commits reads as "I wrote a kernel."
About this repository
This is the CLI only, mirrored from a private monorepo that also holds the course content and grading rubrics. Issues and pull requests are welcome here; note that changes are merged upstream first and mirrored back, so a PR may land as an equivalent commit rather than a merge.
MIT licensed — see LICENSE. What is NOT here: the grading engine
(sboot-judge, fetched per platform and separately licensed) and the course content —
the labs, the prose and the rubrics that say what each check looks for.
Directories