# linemanjs/lineman

Lineman helps you build fat-client JavaScript apps. It produces happiness by building assets, mocking servers, running specs on every file change

Repository: https://github.com/linemanjs/lineman
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/lineman
Language: CoffeeScript
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2021-11-12T12:32:17+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5155, "days_push": 1755, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1167, forks 78 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:50.625903+00:00)

## What it is
Lineman is a Grunt-based project scaffold and build tool for fat-client JavaScript web apps, handling asset compilation, server mocking, and test running. It watches files and rebuilds/reruns specs on every change to streamline frontend development.

## Use cases
- scaffold a new html/css/js webapp project
- build and concatenate frontend assets automatically
- mock a backend server while developing a fat-client app
- run javascript specs on every file change
- bootstrap a frontend project without configuring grunt by hand

## When to choose
- you maintain or contribute to an existing lineman-based project
- you want a simple grunt-based scaffold for a classic fat-client JS app

## When to avoid
- starting a new project - modern bundlers like Vite, webpack, or esbuild are actively maintained
- you need framework-specific tooling (React, Vue, Angular CLIs)
- you need long-term community support - the project is largely inactive

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: maintenance
- function: build-tool, developer-tools, testing, mock-api
- domain: web-development, frontend, developer-tools
- platform: cli, cross-platform
- tags: grunt, scaffold, fat-client, asset-pipeline, coffeescript, live-reload, command-line, nodejs

## Member repositories
- linemanjs/lineman (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:50.625903+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:28:52.127496+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/linemanjs/lineman (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:50.625903+00:00, sha 580078cd9d36)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/lineman (fetched 2026-08-29T12:35:11.821511+00:00, sha 14afc58a4a2c)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.