To build the distribution with the very latest Mono:

$ git clone git@github.com:mono/bockbuild bockbuild
$ cd bockbuild/profiles/mono-mac-release
$ ./mono-mac-release.py --build --arch darwin-32

--arch can also be darwin-64 or darwin-universal (32/64 lipoed build).

To build the distribution with a Mono from a branch:

$ MONO_BRANCH=mono-4.0.0-branch ./mono-mac-release.py --build --arch darwin-32

To build the distribution with your local copy of Mono:

$ MONO_REPOSITORY=/your/mono ./mono-mac-release.py --build --arch darwin-32

To get a shell that uses your custom-built distribution (e.g. to build & run Monodevelop against it):

$ MONO_BRANCH=mono-4.0.0-branch ./mono-mac-release.py --shell

Finally, to create a package of the distribution:

$ MONO_BRANCH=mono-4.0.0-branch ./mono-mac-release.py --build --package

bockbuild is a light-weight build system that can both build and shape bundles for GTK/Mono applications on OS X. Building is easily supported for both Linux and Windows as well.

A build profile can be defined to build a complete jail of dependencies to allow for locally running applications from source without affecting the system libraries or other environment.

It was initially developed to build all of Banshee's dependencies and shape them into a .app bundle.

solitary is the component that walks top-level components of an application to collect all of their dependencies. It is technically a standalone component that works against both native and managed code, resulting in a relocatable application structure. Currently it only works for native code on OS X/darwin.