2.3 Compiling JSONAir

How to build JSONAir from source.

JSONAir uses a standard Go toolchain and a Makefile for convenience. The end result is five standalone static binaries — the server, the agent, the encryption utility, the admin web interface, and the write-only API.

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Before You Start

Make sure you have:

• Go 1.26.2 or later installed (go version to confirm)

• The repository cloned locally:

git clone https://github.com/k9io/jsonair.git
cd jsonair

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Building with Make (Recommended)

The simplest way to build everything is to run make from the repository root. This will tidy the Go module dependencies and compile every binary in one step.

make

This is equivalent to running:

make tidy
make build

The compiled binaries are placed in the bin/ directory:

bin/
  jsonair/jsonair                        ← the JSONAir server
  jsonair-agent/jsonair-agent            ← the JSONAir agent
  jsonair-encrypt/jsonair-encrypt        ← the config data encryption tool
  jsonair-admin/jsonair-admin            ← the admin web interface
  jsonair-write/jsonair-write            ← the write-only API

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Building Individual Components

If you only need one of the binaries, you can build them separately.

Server only:

make jsonair

Agent only:

make jsonair-agent

Encryption tool only:

make jsonair-encrypt

Admin web interface only:

make jsonair-admin

Write-only API only:

make jsonair-write

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Building Directly with Go

You can also build without make using the Go toolchain directly.

Server:

go build -o bin/jsonair/jsonair ./cmd/jsonair

Agent:

go build -o bin/jsonair-agent/jsonair-agent ./cmd/jsonair-agent

Encryption tool:

go build -o bin/jsonair-encrypt/jsonair-encrypt ./cmd/jsonair-encrypt

Admin web interface:

go build -o bin/jsonair-admin/jsonair-admin ./cmd/jsonair-admin

Write-only API:

go build -o bin/jsonair-write/jsonair-write ./cmd/jsonair-write

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Running the Tests

go test ./...

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Cleaning Build Artifacts

To remove the bin/ directory and start fresh:

make clean

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Cross-Compilation

Because JSONAir has no C dependencies, it cross-compiles cleanly using Go's built-in support. Set GOOS and GOARCH before the build command to target a different platform.

Example — build the server for Linux (amd64) on a Mac:

GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -o bin/jsonair/jsonair ./cmd/jsonair

Common targets:

Platform	GOOS	GOARCH
Linux 64-bit	linux	amd64
Linux ARM64 (e.g. AWS Graviton)	linux	arm64
macOS Intel	darwin	amd64
macOS Apple Silicon	darwin	arm64