Hey! How come

pants fmt

doesn't run format over

BUILD

-files, and rather requires you to run

pants update-build-files

? I know the latter does more, but how come the

fmt

doesn't at least run the formatter over them?

I run 'fix' instead of 'fmt'

I'm pretty sure

fix

won't format BUILD-files either

Re fix, see https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/pull/17240

Re fix, see https://github.com/pantsbuild/pants/pull/17240

Sorry I might be missing something, but formatting is not covered. Or do you mean that it could also similarly like the "renamers" be moved over?

It at least does for me 🤷‍♂️ Do you have a fmt backend in pants.toml, f.ex: "pants.backend.build_files.fmt.black"

It at least does for me 🤷‍♂️ Do you have a fmt backend in pants.toml, f.ex:

"pants.backend.build_files.fmt.black"

Oh interesting! Does that backend provide fix goals, maybe even fmt goals to run fmt on build files?

Maybe we are not talking about the same thing. If you want to auto format your build files when you run the fmt or fix command you need to added the backend for it to your pants.toml. Currently they have black, buildifier, ruff and yapf. I'm a black user. https://www.pantsbuild.org/dev/docs/using-pants/key-concepts/backends#available-stable-backends

Yes! I realized you needed the backend for it to format them with

fmt

, thanks! The confusion comes from them being formatted by update-build-files still even without the backend enabled, but then not by

fmt

unless enabling it 😅