The one command of the SDK that is about your project rather than about an asset: it creates a project, builds it, runs it, tests it, measures it, releases it, and checks your installation. It is a compiled program like the rest of the family (The opensnes-* tools: conventions) — nothing to install beside the zip, on Linux, macOS or Windows.

opensnes lives in the SDK's bin/; put that folder on your PATH, or call it by its path. It finds the SDK from $OPENSNES_HOME if you set it, then from its own place (<sdk>/bin/opensnes), then by walking up from the current folder.

Commands

opensnes init my-game --template game   # a new project folder
cd my-game
opensnes build                          # make, in the project's folder (or any folder below it)
opensnes run                            # build, then open the ROM in an emulator
opensnes test --update                  # first time: record the visual baselines
opensnes test                           # run test/*.toml in luna
opensnes budget                         # how much of the console the game uses
opensnes release --tag v1.0             # the ROM you hand over, in release/
opensnes clean
opensnes doctor                         # is everything there?

Command	What it does
init <name> [--template blank\\|game]	writes main.c, a Makefile and res/; blank is a text screen, game a sprite you steer with two luna tests in test/. The name is the ROM's (<name>.sfc): letters, digits, -, _, .. A path works (init ~/projects/my-game).
build [--clean]	runs make in the project — the build itself is make/common.mk (Your project's Makefile). --clean rebuilds from nothing.
clean	removes what the build made
run [--emulator NAME]	builds, then opens the ROM (the TARGET of your Makefile) in the luna GUI that scripts/install-luna.sh installed, or the first of Mesen, bsnes, snes9x on your PATH; --emulator names another
test [--update]	luna test on the project's test/*.toml; --update rewrites the asserts.fbhash baselines
budget [--json]	builds, then one report of what the game uses of what the console has: ROM bank by bank, the C variables' 8 KB and the FAR band, the cartridge's save RAM, and the VRAM and CGRAM the project's assets weigh (opensnes-rom — is the ROM good?). The build talks on stderr; the report is all there is on stdout.
release [--out DIR] [--tag TAG] [--no-test]	the ROM you send to a tester, a flash cart or a publisher: a build from nothing, the project's tests in luna, the header and the checksum read back, then a copy in release/ (<name>.sfc, or <name>-TAG.sfc) with its CRC32 and SHA-1. A failing build, a failing test or a wrong checksum releases nothing. A project with no test/*.toml is released with a warning; --no-test skips the tests on purpose.
doctor [--json]	checks the SDK, the host C compiler (cc, clang or gcc, which the compiler's preprocessing stage uses), make, the compiler and the tools of bin/, the built library, luna and an emulator. Exit 1 if something a build needs is missing, so a script can gate on it.
upgrade [-q] [--removed-only] <folder-or-file>...	lists, in your sources, the names OpenSNES 0.49 removed, with what to use instead, and the calls that kept their name and changed meaning (Upgrading from 0.48 to 0.49). Exit 1 on a hit. The build runs it for you on a source that fails to compile.

build, clean, run, test, budget and release work from any folder of the project: the project is the nearest folder above whose Makefile includes make/common.mk.

It is still make underneath

opensnes build is make with OPENSNES_HOME set; a project is a Makefile of six lines and you can call make, make test and make clean yourself, from an editor or a CI job. The tool is the short way in, not a layer you depend on.

Commands

It is still make underneath

See also