Introducing Burrito: A Mix Release Tool for Cross-Platform Elixir Application Deployment

Burrito is designed to address the challenges of deploying Elixir applications across various environments, especially those with restrictive conditions such as air-gapped systems, varying libc versions, and without the privileges to install Erlang or Elixir. Leveraging Zig, a systems programming language, Burrito enables cross-compilation of Elixir applications into single binaries that run on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It automates finding dependencies and recompiling necessary components like NIFs with Zig as a drop-in C compiler. Users can easily customize the build process by injecting steps into the tool's phases: fetching, patching, and building. Burrito aims for extensibility, ease of use, and broad platform support. While there were initial challenges such as handling different libc implementations and Windows-specific issues like ANSI color support and command-line argument processing, the tool has evolved into a conveniently extensible system with room for community contributions.