Directories

Tuist organizes its files across several directories on your system, following the XDG Base Directory Specification. This provides a clean, standard way to manage configuration, cache, and state files.

Supported environment variables

Tuist supports both standard XDG variables and Tuist-specific prefixed variants. The Tuist-specific variants (prefixed with TUIST_) take precedence, allowing you to configure Tuist separately from other applications.

Configuration directory

Environment variables:

• TUIST_XDG_CONFIG_HOME (takes precedence)
• XDG_CONFIG_HOME

Default: ~/.config/tuist

Used for:

• Server credentials (credentials/{host}.json)

Example:

# Set Tuist-specific config directory
export TUIST_XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/custom/config
tuist auth login

# Or use standard XDG variable
export XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/custom/config
tuist auth login

Cache directory

Environment variables:

• TUIST_XDG_CACHE_HOME (takes precedence)
• XDG_CACHE_HOME

Default: ~/.cache/tuist

Used for:

• Plugins: Downloaded and compiled plugin cache
• ProjectDescriptionHelpers: Compiled project description helpers
• Manifests: Cached manifest files
• Projects: Generated automation project cache
• EditProjects: Cache for edit command
• Runs: Test and build run analytics data
• Binaries: Build artifact binaries (not shareable across environments)
• SelectiveTests: Selective testing cache

Example:

# Set Tuist-specific cache directory
export TUIST_XDG_CACHE_HOME=/tmp/tuist-cache
tuist cache

# Or use standard XDG variable
export XDG_CACHE_HOME=/tmp/cache
tuist cache

State directory

Environment variables:

• TUIST_XDG_STATE_HOME (takes precedence)
• XDG_STATE_HOME

Default: ~/.local/state/tuist

Used for:

• Logs: Log files (logs/{uuid}.log)
• Locks: Authentication lock files ({handle}.sock)

Example:

# Set Tuist-specific state directory
export TUIST_XDG_STATE_HOME=/var/log/tuist
tuist generate

# Or use standard XDG variable
export XDG_STATE_HOME=/var/log
tuist generate

Precedence order

When determining which directory to use, Tuist checks environment variables in the following order:

1. Tuist-specific variable (e.g., TUIST_XDG_CONFIG_HOME)
2. Standard XDG variable (e.g., XDG_CONFIG_HOME)
3. Default location (e.g., ~/.config/tuist)

This allows you to:

• Use standard XDG variables to organize all your applications consistently
• Override with Tuist-specific variables when you need different locations for Tuist
• Rely on sensible defaults without any configuration

Common use cases

Isolating Tuist per project

You might want to isolate Tuist's cache and state per project:

# In your project's .envrc (using direnv)
export TUIST_XDG_CACHE_HOME="$PWD/.tuist/cache"
export TUIST_XDG_STATE_HOME="$PWD/.tuist/state"
export TUIST_XDG_CONFIG_HOME="$PWD/.tuist/config"

CI/CD environments

In CI environments, you might want to use temporary directories:

# GitHub Actions example
env:
  TUIST_XDG_CACHE_HOME: /tmp/tuist-cache
  TUIST_XDG_STATE_HOME: /tmp/tuist-state

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: macos-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: tuist generate
      - name: Upload logs
        if: failure()
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: tuist-logs
          path: /tmp/tuist-state/logs/*.log

Debugging with isolated directories

When debugging issues, you might want a clean slate:

# Create temporary directories for debugging
export TUIST_XDG_CACHE_HOME=$(mktemp -d)
export TUIST_XDG_STATE_HOME=$(mktemp -d)
export TUIST_XDG_CONFIG_HOME=$(mktemp -d)

# Run Tuist commands
tuist generate

# Clean up when done
rm -rf $TUIST_XDG_CACHE_HOME $TUIST_XDG_STATE_HOME $TUIST_XDG_CONFIG_HOME