John Lato-2 wrote

> This requested feature seems to overlap with the build-tools section,
> however I don't think cabal will attempt to auto-install executables
> listed
> there.
>
> I think build-depends and build-tools should be kept separate, but maybe
> if
> an executable listed in build-tools isn't found, cabal could look for a
> package with the same name on hackage and attempt to install that first?

I'd forgotten about build-tools. Does it actually do anything?