From 95f9631263993bc47e7b678024bee5a96a87155d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Daylin Morgan <daylinmorgan@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2023 18:30:56 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] docs: add some basic info about forge!

---
 README.md | 106 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
 1 file changed, 104 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index d661fc9..a113e8f 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,10 +1,112 @@
 # forge
 
-A toolchain to forge your multi-platform `nim` binaries.
+A basic toolchain to forge (cross-compile) your multi-platform `nim` binaries.
 
-## install
+## Why?
+
+`Nim` is a great language and the code is as portable as any other code written in C.
+But who wants to manage C toolchains or CI/CD DSL's to cross-compile your code into easily sharable native executable binaries
+
+## Installation
+
+In order to use `forge` you must first install [`zig`](https://ziglang.org/) as all compilation
+is done using a thin wrapper around `zig cc`.
+
+> [!NOTE]
+> Future versions may use an automated/isolated `zig` installation.
 
 ```sh
 nimble install https://github.com/daylinmorgan/forge
 ```
 
+## Usage
+
+`Forge` provide two key methods to compile your `nim` source `forge cc` and `forge release`.
+
+
+### `forge cc`
+
+To compile a single binary for a platform you can use `forge cc`.
+
+Example:
+
+```sh
+forge cc --target x86_64-linux-musl -- -d:release src/forge.nim -o:forge
+```
+
+### `forge release`
+
+This command is useful for generating many compiled binaries like you may be accustomed to seeing from `go` or `rust` cli's.
+`Forge release` will make attempts to infer many values based on the assumption that it's
+likely run from the root directory of a `nim` project with a `<project>.nimble`
+
+You can either specify all commands on the CLI or use a config file.
+
+Example:
+```sh
+forge release --target x86_64-linux-musl x86_64-macos-none --bin src/forge.nim
+```
+
+Result:
+```
+dist
+├── forge-v2023.1001-x86_64-linux-musl
+│   └── forge
+└── forge-v2023.1001-x86_64-macos-none
+    └── forge
+```
+
+The output directories used for each binary are determined
+by a format string: `${name}-v${version}-${target}`.
+You can modify this with additional info at runtime like using
+date instead of version string: `--format "\${name}-$(date +'%Y%M%d')-\${target}"`.
+
+You can also create a config file by default at `./.forge.cfg` that controls the behavior of `forge release`:
+
+```dosini
+# flags are specified at the top level
+nimble # key without value for booleans
+format = "${name}-${target}"
+outdir = forge-dist
+
+# use sections to list targets/bins with optional args
+[target]
+x86_64-linux-musl = "--debugInfo:on"
+x86_64-linux-gnu
+
+[bin]
+src/forge
+src/forgecc = "--opt:size" # use a custom flag for this binary
+```
+
+Example:
+```sh
+forge release --verbose --dryrun
+```
+
+Output:
+```
+forge release -V --dryrun
+forge || config =
+| nimble  true
+| outdir  forge-dist
+| format  ${name}-${target}
+| version 2023.1001
+| targets:
+|   x86_64-linux-musl|--debugInfo:on
+|   x86_64-linux-gnu
+| bins:
+|   src/forge
+|   src/forgecc|--opt:size
+forge || dry run...see below for commands
+forge || compiling 2 binaries for 2 targets
+nimble c --cpu:amd64 --os:Linux --cc:clang --clang.exe='forgecc' --clang.linkerexe='forgecc' --passC:'-target x86_64-linux-musl' --passL:'-target x86_64-linux-musl' -d:release --outdir:'dist/forge-x86_64-linux-musl' --debugInfo:on src/forge
+nimble c --cpu:amd64 --os:Linux --cc:clang --clang.exe='forgecc' --clang.linkerexe='forgecc' --passC:'-target x86_64-linux-musl' --passL:'-target x86_64-linux-musl' -d:release --outdir:'dist/forge-x86_64-linux-musl' --debugInfo:on --opt:size src/forgecc
+nimble c --cpu:amd64 --os:Linux --cc:clang --clang.exe='forgecc' --clang.linkerexe='forgecc' --passC:'-target x86_64-linux-gnu' --passL:'-target x86_64-linux-gnu' -d:release --outdir:'dist/forge-x86_64-linux-gnu' src/forge
+nimble c --cpu:amd64 --os:Linux --cc:clang --clang.exe='forgecc' --clang.linkerexe='forgecc' --passC:'-target x86_64-linux-gnu' --passL:'-target x86_64-linux-gnu' -d:release --outdir:'dist/forge-x86_64-linux-gnu' --opt:size src/forgecc
+
+```
+
+## Acknowledgements
+
+Thanks to [Andrew Kelley](https://github.com/andrewrk) and the many `zig` [contributors](https://github.com/ziglang/zig/graphs/contributors).