feat: configurable "default" context for tasks without one (#85) by trntv · Pull Request #129 · taskctl/taskctl

trntv · 2026-07-19T15:56:19Z

Overview

Adds a supported way to give all tasks a common env (and variables, working dir, executable, and lifecycle hooks): a context named default now backs any task that declares no context:. Resolves discussion Global variables #85.

Goal

Discussion #85 asked for "a common env: for all tasks." Previously env could only be set per-task, per-context, or per-stage — there was no shared baseline. The empty-context case built a throwaway empty context and never consulted the configured contexts: map.

Decisions

Modeled the shared baseline through the existing context mechanism instead of a new top-level env: key. It's the smaller change (only contextForTask), needs no new config schema, and reuses the whole context feature set — env, variables, dir, executable, and up/down/before/after hooks all apply to default-context tasks for free.
Precedence is default context < task: a task's own env/variables override the default context's for the same key (falls out of the existing merge order).
Contexts stay selectable — a task with an explicit context: uses that one and does not inherit default.
Backward compatible: when no default context is defined, context-less tasks still run in an empty implicit context.

Usage

contexts:
  default:
    env:
      GREETING: hello-global
tasks:
  show:      { command: 'echo "$GREETING"' }                              # hello-global
  override:  { env: { GREETING: hello-task }, command: 'echo "$GREETING"' } # hello-task

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Discussion #85 asked for a common env shared by all tasks. A task that declares no context: now resolves a context named `default` from config, so its env, variables, dir, executable and lifecycle hooks apply to every such task (precedence: default context < task). When no `default` context is defined, context-less tasks keep running in an empty implicit context. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR introduces a “default” execution context fallback so tasks that omit context: can still inherit shared execution settings (env/vars/dir/executable/hooks), enabling a common baseline environment across tasks via existing context configuration.

Changes:

Update task execution to resolve context-less tasks against a configurable default context when present.
Add runner tests covering default-context inheritance, task override precedence, explicit-context isolation, and backward compatibility when no default context exists.
Document the new behavior in the README and update the example configuration to reference the default context.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

File	Description
runner/runner.go	Implements default-context fallback during context resolution for tasks without an explicit context.
runner/runner_test.go	Adds coverage for default context inheritance/override behavior and the no-default fallback path.
README.md	Documents how `default` context applies to tasks without `context:` and clarifies `.Context.Executable` semantics.
docs/example.yaml	Updates the example to use `default` as the implicit context for context-less tasks.

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Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

runner/runner.go:326

Tasks without an explicit context: now resolve to the default context (via name = defaultContextName), but the template variable .Context.Name is still populated from t.Context (see runner.go:189), so it remains empty for these tasks even when the default context is actually used. This makes the new behavior hard to observe in templates and contradicts the README statement that .Context is the resolved execution context.

Consider returning the resolved context name from contextForTask (or otherwise threading it through) so .Context.Name reflects the selected context (e.g. "default" when falling back).

	name := t.Context
	if name == "" {
		name = defaultContextName
	}

Use `c, ok =` instead of `:=` in contextForTask so the assignment to the named return `c` is explicit, matching the original idiom. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

runner/runner.go:325

contextForTask now resolves an implicit context name (default when t.Context is empty), but the resolved name is not surfaced anywhere. In particular, .Context.Name is currently populated from t.Context (see runner/runner.go:189), so tasks that implicitly use the default context will still see an empty .Context.Name, which contradicts the new documented behavior and makes templates/diagnostics ambiguous.

	name := t.Context
	if name == "" {
		name = defaultContextName
	}

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Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

runner/runner.go:332

contextForTask now resolves an implicit context name (falls back to "default"), but callers that expose the resolved context to templates still use t.Context rather than the resolved name (see vars.Set("Context", contextInfo{Name: t.Context, ...}) at runner/runner.go:195). As a result, a task that omits context: can run under the configured default context but still see an empty .Context.Name in templates, contradicting the README’s definition of .Context as the resolved execution context.

func (r *TaskRunner) contextForTask(ctx context.Context, t *task.Task) (c *ExecutionContext, err error) {
	name := t.Context
	if name == "" {
		name = defaultContextName
	}

+	inherit := taskpkg.FromCommands(`printf "[%s]" "$GLOBAL_ENV"`)
+	inherit.Name = "inherit"
+
+	override := taskpkg.FromCommands(`printf "[%s]" "$SHARED_ENV"`)
+	override.Name = "override"
+	override.Env = variables.FromMap(map[string]string{"SHARED_ENV": "task-wins"})
+
+	explicit := taskpkg.FromCommands(`printf "[%s]" "${GLOBAL_ENV:-unset}"`)
+	explicit.Name = "explicit"
+	explicit.Context = "other"
+
+	cases := []struct {
+		t    *taskpkg.Task
+		want string
+	}{
+		{t: inherit, want: "[from-default]"}, // no context -> inherits the default context env
+		{t: override, want: "[task-wins]"},   // task env overrides the default context env
+		{t: explicit, want: "[unset]"},       // an explicit context does not see the default context env
+	}


Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

+// defaultContextName is the context a task falls back to when it declares no
+// context: if the config defines a context by this name it is used (so its env,
+// variables and hooks apply to every such task), otherwise an empty context is used.


+func TestTaskRunner_DefaultContext(t *testing.T) {
+	defaultCtx := NewExecutionContext(nil, "", variables.FromMap(map[string]string{


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Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings July 19, 2026 16:01

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trntv and others added 2 commits July 19, 2026 19:01

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refactor: assign resolved context to the named return explicitly

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Use `c, ok =` instead of `:=` in contextForTask so the assignment to the named return `c` is explicit, matching the original idiom. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

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Merge branch 'main' into default-context-env

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trntv merged commit e77ca83 into main Jul 19, 2026
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trntv deleted the default-context-env branch July 19, 2026 16:07

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feat: configurable "default" context for tasks without one (#85) - #129

feat: configurable "default" context for tasks without one (#85)#129
trntv merged 7 commits into
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trntv commented Jul 19, 2026

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		func TestTaskRunner_DefaultContext(t *testing.T) {
		defaultCtx := NewExecutionContext(nil, "", variables.FromMap(map[string]string{

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trntv commented Jul 19, 2026

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