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macOS Universal Binaries

GoReleaser can create macOS Universal Binaries - also known as Fat Binaries. Those binaries are in a special format that contains both arm64 and amd64 executables in a single file.

Here's how to use it:

# .goreleaser.yaml
universal_binaries:
-
  # ID of resulting universal binary.
  #
  # Defaults to the project name.
  id: foo

  # IDs to use to filter the built binaries.
  #
  # Defaults to the `id` field.
  # Since: v1.3.
  ids:
  - build1
  - build2

  # Universal binary name template.
  #
  # You will want to change this if you have multiple builds!
  #
  # Defaults to '{{ .ProjectName }}'
  name_template: '{{.ProjectName}}_{{.Version}}'

  # Whether to remove the previous single-arch binaries from the artifact list.
  # If left as false, your end release might have both several macOS archives:
  # amd64, arm64 and all.
  #
  # Defaults to false.
  replace: true

  # Hooks can be used to customize the final binary,
  # for example, to run generators.
  # Those fields allow templates.
  #
  # Default is both hooks empty.
  hooks:
    pre: rice embed-go
    post: ./script.sh {{ .Path }}

Tip

Learn more about the name template engine.

For more info about hooks, see the build section.

The minimal configuration for most setups would look like this:

# .goreleaser.yml
universal_binaries:
- replace: true

That config will join your default build macOS binaries into an Universal Binary, removing the single-arch binaries from the artifact list.

From there, the Arch template variable for this file will be all. You can use the Go template engine to remove it if you'd like.

Warning

You'll want to change name_template for each id you add in universal binaries, otherwise they'll have the same name.

Example:

universal_binaries:
- id: foo
  name_template: bin1
- id: bar
  name_template: bin2

Naming templates

Most fields that support templating will also support the following build details:

Key Description
.Os GOOS, always darwin
.Arch GOARCH, always all
.Arm GOARM, always empty
.Ext Extension, always empty
.Target Build target, always darwin_all
.Path The binary path
.Name The binary name

Tip

Notice that .Path and .Name will only be available after they are evaluated, so they are mostly only useful in the post hooks.