---
title: "Make a generated script executable"
description: "Give a generated script its execute bit with the File mode prop."
source: "https://jostraca.org/how-to/set-file-permissions/"
---

# Make a generated script executable

Give a generated script its execute bit with the File mode prop.

Rendered from [`docs/how-to/set-file-permissions.md`](https://github.com/jostraca/jostraca/blob/master/docs/how-to/set-file-permissions.md) in the generator repository — where a correction belongs, and where the test suite runs every example on this page or states why it does not.

A generated shell script that is not executable is a bug report waiting to happen. Pass `mode` to `File`:

```js
import { statSync } from 'node:fs'
import { Jostraca, Project, File, Content } from 'jostraca'

await Jostraca().generate({ folder: './out' }, () => {
  Project({}, () => {
    File({ name: 'run.sh', mode: 0o755 }, () => {
      Content('#!/bin/sh\necho hi\n')
    })
    File({ name: 'plain.txt' }, () => Content('hi\n'))
  })
})

const mode = (p) => (statSync(p).mode & 0o777).toString(8)
console.log('run.sh', mode('./out/run.sh'))
console.log('executable:', 0 !== (statSync('./out/run.sh').mode & 0o111))
console.log('plain.txt executable:', 0 !== (statSync('./out/plain.txt').mode & 0o111))
```

```text
run.sh 755
executable: true
plain.txt executable: false
```

Without `mode`, a file gets the platform default, which does not include an execute bit.

An explicit `mode` wins over the existing file’s mode when regenerating, so changing it in the generator actually takes effect. It survives the atomic write, which swaps the inode and would otherwise lose it, and it is applied even when the content was unchanged and no write happened.

It applies to the target only. The `.old` and `.new` sidecars and the merge baseline stay at the default, since those are Jostraca’s bookkeeping rather than your output.

**Windows has no POSIX permission bits.** `fs.chmod` there only toggles the read-only attribute, so `mode: 0o755` is accepted, throws nothing, and has no effect beyond that. Generate a `.cmd` wrapper if Windows users need to run the thing.

## See also

-   [Component reference](https://jostraca.org/docs/reference-components#file).