Glob Patterns

Glob patterns are the default targeting type. When a target expression has no recognized prefix and does not contain boolean operators, Zester treats it as a glob pattern and matches it against peel IDs.

Zester uses Go's filepath.Match semantics, which support the standard shell-style wildcards.

Syntax

Wildcard	Description	Example	Matches
`*`	Matches any sequence of non-separator characters	`web*`	`web-01`, `webserver`, `web`
`?`	Matches any single non-separator character	`web-0?`	`web-01`, `web-02` but not `web-001`
`[abc]`	Matches any single character in the set	`web-0[123]`	`web-01`, `web-02`, `web-03`
`[a-z]`	Matches any single character in the range	`db-[a-c]`	`db-a`, `db-b`, `db-c`
`[^abc]`	Matches any single character not in the set	`web-0[^9]`	`web-01` through `web-08`

No recursive/double-star support

Unlike some glob implementations, filepath.Match does not support ** for recursive matching. The * wildcard does not match path separator characters. In Zester's context, peel IDs are flat strings (not paths), so * effectively matches any substring.

Examples

Match all peels

zester '*' state.apply base.ping

Targeting 12 peel(s): [web-01 web-02 web-03 db-01 db-02 ...]
Applying state: base.ping (timeout: 5m0s)
  Dispatched to web-01
  Dispatched to web-02
  ...

Match by prefix

zester 'web*' state.apply nginx.restart

Matches: web-01, web-02, webserver, web-prod-01

Match with single-character wildcard

zester 'db-0?' state.apply postgres.vacuum

Matches: db-01, db-02, db-09 Does not match: db-10, db-001

Match with character class

zester 'web-[12]*' state.apply deploy.app

Matches: web-1, web-2, web-10, web-2-prod Does not match: web-3, web-01

Match with negated character class

zester 'cache-[^0]*' state.apply redis.flush

Matches: cache-a, cache-primary Does not match: cache-01, cache-0

Validation

Glob patterns are validated at parse time. An invalid pattern (for example, an unclosed [ bracket) produces an immediate error:

zester 'web-[' state.apply base.ping

Error: resolve target "web-[": target: create matcher:
  target: invalid glob pattern "web-[": syntax error in pattern

How It Works

The GlobMatcher wraps Go's standard library filepath.Match function. When matching, it only looks at the peel ID string -- fact data is ignored.

GlobMatcher.Match(peelID, facts) -> filepath.Match(pattern, peelID)

The pattern is validated once during construction, and each subsequent match call is a simple string comparison with no allocations.

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