NINJA(1)

📦
version 1.13.2 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ NAME ✨

ninja — a small build system that's the closest thing in spirit to Make 🎀

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay bestie so here's the whole vibe, the usage is literally this:

ninja [options] [targets...]

and if you don't give it any targets at all? it just builds the 'default' target (go read the manual for the deets, iykyk).

options:

  • --version — prints the ninja version, which is "1.13.2" 💅
  • -v, --verbose — shows you every single command line while it's building, no secrets here
  • --quiet — skips the progress status entirely, just gives you the command output, minimal queen behavior 🙈
  • -C DIR — changes into DIR before doing literally anything else
  • -f FILE — tells it which input build file to use [default=build.ninja]
  • -j N — runs N jobs in parallel (0 means infinity, she does not stop) [default=#CPUs]
  • -k N — keeps going until N jobs fail (0 means infinity, again, no chill) [default=1]
  • -l N — does not start any new jobs if the load average is greater than N
  • -n — dry run!! doesn't actually run the commands but acts like they all succeeded, delulu but productive 💀
  • -d MODE — turns on debugging (use '-d list' to see all the modes)
  • -t TOOL — runs a subtool (use '-t list' to see all the subtools)

terminates toplevel options; further flags are passed to the tool

  • -w FLAG — adjusts warnings (use '-w list' to see all the warnings)

💖 AUTHOR 💖

This manual page was written by Gary Kramlich <grim@reaperworld.com> for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but like, anyone can use it, it's for the people fr fr 🫶).

and that's a wrap bestie!! this was ninja 1.13.2, dropped November 2025 — go build something iconic 👑✨

📦 where this page comes from