NAME lib::with::preamble - invent your own default perl setup SYNOPSIS use lib::with::preamble 'use v5.16; use strictures 1;', 'lib'; The above will load .pm files from lib/ - but they'll act as if your code always started with 'use v5.16; use strictures 1;'. USING THIS IN A DISTRIBUTION To use this in a dist, you'll want to create two files - # my/lib.pm use lib::with::preamble 'use v5.16; use strictures 1;', 'lib'; 1; # my/filter print "use v5.16;\nuse strictures 1;\n#line 1\n"; while () { print } and then tell your Makefile.PL to use the filter - WriteMakefile( ... PM_FILTER => 'perl my/filter' ); Then during development instead of doing $ perl -Ilib bin/script-to-test you'll want to do - $ perl -Mmy::lib bin/script-to-test and for prove - $ PERL5OPT=-Mmy::lib prove t/some-test.t but once you run $ make your blib/ will get populated with files that already have your preamble added, so $ prove -b t/some-test.t will just work, as will $ make test and when your users install your module, the .pm files will already have the preamble at the top, so your installed files will look like # My/Foo.pm use v5.16; use strictures 1; # line 1 package My::Foo; ... and everything should work, without you even needing to add this module as a dependency. Patches to document an equivalent for those of you using Dist::Zilla (and Module::Build, even if I don't like the bedamned thing) would be very welcome. WARNING This is as much a proof of concept as anything else at this point, so the interface is NOT guaranteed to be stable. Especially since this is meant to be a sort of implicit sugar, and history has proven that other people are much better at designing APIs to sugar than I am. But provided you're using it the way I describe above, the my/filter script isn't dependent on anything, so your users will be insulated from that. So please do have a play around and see if it works for you. AUTHOR mst - Matt S. Trout (cpan:MSTROUT) CONTRIBUTORS None yet. Well volunteered? :) COPYRIGHT Copyright (c) 2013 the lib::with::preamble "AUTHOR" and "CONTRIBUTORS" as listed above. LICENSE This library is free software and may be distributed under the same terms as perl itself.