doc: add tips about lake usage

templates/install/project.md

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ a portmanteau of `lean` and `make`).
 This page describes the basic use of this tool, and should be sufficient
 for everyday use.
 If this is not enough for your purposes, you can read the
-full [lake documentation](https://github.com/leanprover/lake/blob/master/README.md).
+full [lake documentation](https://github.com/leanprover/lean4/blob/master/src/lake/README.md).
 
 ## Working on an existing project
 
@@ -123,6 +123,16 @@ More information about Lake can be found [here](https://github.com/leanprover/le
 
 See [How to contribute to mathlib](https://leanprover-community.github.io/contribute/index.html).
 
+## Further Tips and Tricks
+
+If you are interested in a custom setup,
+you can read [Tips and Tricks](tricks.html).
+
+This contains some notes about
+* Setting up a shared, *global/centralised* mathlib installation.
+* Automatically follow stable versions of dependencies.
+* Using build options to switch to local package versions.
+
 ## Troubleshooting
 
 * Some Windows users have reported an error like this when running `lake exe cache get`:

templates/install/tricks.md

@@ -0,0 +1,148 @@
+# Tips and Tricks about Lean Projects
+
+These tips and tricks about managing Lean projects should be considered workarounds or common practice. Some care is adviced when trying these non-standard setups.
+
+*Note:* Things here might change as `lake` is being developed, as features described here are not necessarily officially supported by `lake`. This file has been written for Lean `v4.10.0`. If in doubt, ask for help on [Zulip](https://leanprover.zulipchat.com).
+
+## Shared Mathlib
+
+If you start many projects which all use the latest stable version of mathlib, e.g. because you have little
+disk space available, it might be worth setting them up using one centralised mathlib instead of
+letting every project download there own clone.
+
+Here is a guide on best practise on how to achieve that.
+
+1) First, clone the version of mathlib somewhere on your computer:
+   ```bash
+   git clone --branch v4.10.0 [email protected]:leanprover-community/mathlib4.git
+   ```
+   Note that `v4.10.0` is the tag of the latest release, you can look at [mathlib's tags](https://github.com/leanprover-community/mathlib4/tags) to find out which is the most recent release version.
+
+   (If you don't have git setup correctly using an SSH key, you might want to use `git clone --branch v4.10.0 https://github.com/leanprover-community/mathlib4.git` instead.)
+2) Go inside your mathlib and download cache:
+   ```bash
+   cd mathlib
+   lake exe cache get
+   ```
+3) If you ever want to **update** your global mathlib, come back to the mathlib directory and call
+   ```bash
+   git checkout v4.11.0
+   lake exe cache get
+   ```
+   with the [version](https://github.com/leanprover-community/mathlib4/tags) you'd like to update to.
+4) Now if you don't already have a Lean project, create it
+   ```bash
+   lake new MyProject math.lean
+   cd MyProject
+   ```
+5) In the project `MyProject` you need to modify two things:
+   <!-- 1) Make sure `lean-toolchain` contains the string `leanprover/lean4:v4.10.0` with the same version your shared mathlib is at. -->
+   * In `lakefile.lean`, replace the line `require "leanprover-community" / "mathlib"` with
+     ```
+     require mathlib from ".." / "relative" / "path" / "to" / "mathlib4"
+     ```
+   * Now inside `MyProject` you need to clean up lake:
+     ```bash
+     rm -rf .lake # because `lake clean` does not remove `.lake/packages/mathlib` which might have been downloaded by `lake new`.
+     lake clean # or potentially `lake update -R mathlib` instead
+     ````
+     *(note: it looks like a bug that with a simple `lake clean`, there might still be a folder `.lake/packages/mathlib` floating around from before you changed the `lakefile.lean`. However, deleting `.lake/` is a reasonably save action as it only contains build artifacts that are fully recovered by the next `lake` call.)*
+   * Your project should be ready and when you add `import Mathlib` in a file and click "Restart File" in VSCode, it should be reasonably quick without rebuilding mathlib.
+6) When you updated your global mathlib it might be enough to call
+   ```
+   lake update -R mathlib
+   ```
+   which would in theory update everything automatically.
+   However, if there are breaking changes to the `lakefile` parsing, you might need to
+   * edit `lean-toolchain` to be the same as your global mathlib.
+   * make sure `lakefile.lean` parses without error in the new version.
+   * try `lake update -R mathlib` again.
+
+## Following stable versions of dependencies
+
+If your Lean project only wants to following the stable releases of dependencies (i.e. `v4.10.0`, `v4.11.0`, etc.) you could do the following trick:
+
+In your `lakefile.lean`, add
+
+```lean
+def leanVersion : String := s!"v{Lean.versionString}"
+```
+
+and then suffix all `require`s with `@ leanVersion`:
+
+```
+require "leanprover-community" / "mathlib" @ leanVersion
+```
+
+*Note:* for this to work, the repository of each dependency needs to have a tag (or branch) for the Lean version you're using, e.g. look at [the mathlib tags](https://github.com/leanprover-community/mathlib4/tags).
+
+If you specified the version for all dependencies in your project, you can then update your project simply by
+
+* Edit `lean-toolchain` to have the new toolchain `leanprover/lean4:v4.11.0`.
+* Call `lake update -R`.
+
+  *(note: a blank `lake update -R` is only reasonable if **all** required dependencies in your project have a version specified with `@`)*
+
+
+
+## Using local dev version of a dependency
+
+In rare circumstances you might want to use a local copy of a dependency (e.g. `mathlib`) when developing, i.e. to test changes immediately.
+
+You could do this by using a local dependency while developing
+```
+require mathlib from ".." / "mathlib4"
+```
+and then change it back to the remote dependency before pushing changes:
+```
+require "leanprover-community" / "mathlib"
+```
+
+However, if you want to do this frequently, here might be a better setup. With the suggested modifications to the `lakefile.lean` below, you get the following behaviour:
+
+* To use the local dependency, call
+  ```
+  lake update -R -Kmathlib.useDev mathlib
+  ```
+* To switch back to the remote dependency, call
+  ```
+  lake update -R mathlib
+  ```
+* Anybody `require`-ing your project as dependency in there own project will automatically get the remote version of the dependencies.
+
+(*Note:* make sure to read the chapter above about specifying versions when using `lake update`).
+
+For this you need to replace `require "leanprover-community" / "mathlib"` in your `lakefile.lean` with the following instructions:
+
+```lean
+/-- The local dependency. Using a relative path. -/
+def LocalMathlib : Dependency := {
+  name := `mathlib
+  src? := some <| .path (".." / "mathlib4")
+  scope := ""
+  version? := none
+  opts := {}
+}
+
+/-- The remote dependency. Note that "master" is the tag/branch you want to clone from. -/
+def RemoteMathlib : Dependency := {
+  name := `mathlib
+  /--
+  You can also write `src? := none` to get the package from Reservoir instead
+  (if `scope` is specified correctly),
+  or you can replace `"master"` with `none` to not specify the input branch/tag.
+  -/
+  src? := some <| .git "https://github.com/leanprover-community/mathlib4.git" "master" none
+  scope := "leanprover-community"
+  version? := none
+  opts := {}
+}
+
+/- Choose `mathlib` dependency locally if `-Kmathlib.useDev` is provided. -/
+open Lean in
+#eval (do
+  let depName := if get_config? mathlib.useDev |>.isSome then
+    ``LocalMathlib else ``RemoteMathlib
+  modifyEnv (fun env => Lake.packageDepAttr.ext.addEntry env depName)
+  : Elab.Command.CommandElabM Unit)
+```