How to enforce the templ cli version to match the templ module version?

[yardenshoham]

As far as I understand, templ is used in 2 ways in a project. The first is as a dependency of github.com/a-h/templ in go.mod, specifying the version in go.mod and thus making sure you can git clone then go mod download and you end up using the intended version of templ. This is needed as the generated code imports github.com/a-h/templ.

The second way is as a CLI tool, installed with go install github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ@VERSION. This is to allow running templ generate. I don't see a builtin way to enforce the versions of these to match. The best thing I can think of is go install github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ@$(go list -m -f '{{ .Version }}' github.com/a-h/templ) but this is a one-time operation, not suitable in case of a templ version upgrade. go mod download doesn't control the version of the templ CLI tool.

I am looking for a development experience similar to that of NodeJS tools like typescript or prettier. I can enforce the typescript compiler version by specifying the typescript module version in package.json, then everyone use npx tsc or npm run build and the version is maintained in package.json. With the templ CLI tool there is a different experience, there's no equivalent to npm install as go mod download doesn't handle the templ CLI tool version inference.

[joerdav]

One option for you would be to not use go install then templ generate.

I believe that you can use go run to use the version specified in the go.mod.

So the command would just be:

go run github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ generate

I'm on my phone so haven't had chance to test it out, but I believe it is possible.

[yardenshoham]

I tried but it fails with

$ go run github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ generate
../go/pkg/mod/github.com/a-h/templ@v0.2.598/parser/v2/calltemplateparser.go:4:2: missing go.sum entry for module providing package github.com/a-h/parse (imported by github.com/a-h/templ/parser/v2); to add:
        go get github.com/a-h/templ/parser/v2@v0.2.598
../go/pkg/mod/github.com/a-h/templ@v0.2.598/cmd/templ/fmtcmd/main.go:16:2: missing go.sum entry for module providing package github.com/natefinch/atomic (imported by github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ/fmtcmd); to add:
        go get github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ/fmtcmd@v0.2.598
../go/pkg/mod/github.com/a-h/templ@v0.2.598/cmd/templ/generatecmd/cmd.go:23:2: missing go.sum entry for module providing package github.com/cenkalti/backoff/v4 (imported by github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ/generatecmd); to add:
        go get github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ/generatecmd@v0.2.598
../go/pkg/mod/github.com/a-h/templ@v0.2.598/cmd/templ/generatecmd/cmd.go:24:2: missing go.sum entry for module providing package github.com/cli/browser (imported by github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ/generatecmd); to add:
        go get github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ/generatecmd@v0.2.598
../go/pkg/mod/github.com/a-h/templ@v0.2.598/cmd/templ/lspcmd/main.go:11:2: missing go.sum entry for module providing package github.com/a-h/protocol (imported by github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ/lspcmd); to add:
        go get github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ/lspcmd@v0.2.598
../go/pkg/mod/github.com/a-h/templ@v0.2.598/cmd/templ/lspcmd/proxy/server.go:14:2: missing go.sum entry for module providing package go.lsp.dev/uri (imported by github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ/lspcmd/proxy); to add:
        go get github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ/lspcmd/proxy@v0.2.598
../go/pkg/mod/github.com/a-h/templ@v0.2.598/cmd/templ/lspcmd/main.go:15:2: missing go.sum entry for module providing package go.lsp.dev/jsonrpc2 (imported by github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ/lspcmd); to add:
        go get github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ/lspcmd@v0.2.598
../go/pkg/mod/github.com/a-h/templ@v0.2.598/parser/v1/elementparser.go:9:2: missing go.sum entry for module providing package github.com/a-h/lexical/input (imported by github.com/a-h/templ/parser/v1); to add:
        go get github.com/a-h/templ/parser/v1@v0.2.598
../go/pkg/mod/github.com/a-h/templ@v0.2.598/parser/v1/calltemplateparser.go:6:2: missing go.sum entry for module providing package github.com/a-h/lexical/parse (imported by github.com/a-h/templ/parser/v1); to add:
        go get github.com/a-h/templ/parser/v1@v0.2.598

Should I try running these go gets it suggests?

[silverwind]

Yes, that also what I was told that if you go run github.com/a-h/templ/cmd/templ it will use the version from go.mod, if it is imported anywhere in your project.

Long-term it's a problem of the go tooling and golang/go#48429 would help.