Introduction

Jetpack (sometimes “Jet”) is a general-purpose, community-driven IT automation platform for configuration management, deployment, orchestration, patching, and arbitrary task execution workflows. It is written in Rust.

Jetpack is a GPLv3-licensed revival of Jetporch, the original project created by Michael DeHaan.

Why Jetpack?

• Fast and self-contained — a single Rust binary. No agent is required on target hosts.
• Same playbooks, local or remote — run against the local machine or over SSH with no changes to your code.
• Templating first — {{variables}} and conditionals throughout; inventory is the single source of truth.
• Check before you apply — syntax-check, inventory-check, and full-check validate a run before anything changes.
• Instantiation — provision VMs and LXCs on-demand, just-in-time, ahead of a playbook.

At a glance

A playbook is a YAML list of tasks. Each task is a module (!command, !package, !file, …) with parameters and an optional with: block of modifiers:

- !package
  name: nginx
  with:
    sudo: root
    condition: (eq jet_os_flavor "Debian")

Where to next

• Installation — build the binary.
• Usage — run your first playbook.
• Playbooks — the playbook format and modifiers.
• Modules — the building blocks.

Note: Jetpack is pre-alpha. Some areas of these docs are still being written — see the GitHub repository and the DeepWiki for more.