Project: /_project.yaml Book: /_book.yaml
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A command to run during the build, for example, a call to a compiler that takes artifacts as inputs and produces other artifacts as outputs. Includes metadata like the command line arguments, action key, environment variables, and declared input/output artifacts.
See also: Rules documentation
An on-disk cache that stores a mapping of executed actions to the outputs they created. The cache key is known as the action key. A core component for Bazel's incrementality model. The cache is stored in the output base directory and thus survives Bazel server restarts.
An in-memory graph of actions and the artifacts that these actions read and generate. The graph might include artifacts that exist as source files (for example, in the file system) as well as generated intermediate/final artifacts that are not mentioned in BUILD files. Produced during the analysis phase and used during the execution phase.
A query tool that can query over build actions. This provides the ability to analyze how build rules translate into the actual work builds do.
The cache key of an action. Computed based on action metadata, which might include the command to be executed in the action, compiler flags, library locations, or system headers, depending on the action. Enables Bazel to cache or invalidate individual actions deterministically.
The second phase of a build. Processes the target graph specified in BUILD files to produce an in-memory action graph that determines the order of actions to run during the execution phase. This is the phase in which rule implementations are evaluated.
A source file or a generated file. Can also be a directory of files, known as tree artifacts.
An artifact may be an input to multiple actions, but must only be generated by at most one action.
An artifact that corresponds to a file target can be addressed by a label.
A mechanism for rules to create additional actions in their dependencies. For example, if target A depends on B, one can apply an aspect on A that traverses up a dependency edge to B, and runs additional actions in B to generate and collect additional output files. These additional actions are cached and reused between targets requiring the same aspect. Created with the aspect() Starlark Build API function. Can be used, for example, to generate metadata for IDEs, and create actions for linting.
See also: Aspects documentation
A composition mechanism whereby aspects can be applied to the results of other aspects. For example, an aspect that generates information for use by IDEs can be applied on top of an aspect that generates .java files from a proto.
For an aspect A to apply on top of aspect B, the providers that B advertises in its provides attribute must match what A declares it wants in its required_aspect_providers attribute.
A parameter to a rule, used to express per-target build information. Examples include srcs, deps, and copts, which respectively declare a target's source files, dependencies, and custom compiler options. The particular attributes available for a given target depend on its rule type.
Bazel’s configuration file used to change the default values for startup flags and command flags, and to define common groups of options that can then be set together on the Bazel command line using a --config flag. Bazel can combine settings from multiple bazelrc files (systemwide, per-workspace, per-user, or from a custom location), and a bazelrc file may also import settings from other bazelrc files.
The Google-internal version of Bazel. Google’s main build system for its mono-repository.
A BUILD file is the main configuration file that tells Bazel what software outputs to build, what their dependencies are, and how to build them. Bazel takes a BUILD file as input and uses the file to create a graph of dependencies and to derive the actions that must be completed to build intermediate and final software outputs. A BUILD file marks a directory and any sub-directories not containing a BUILD file as a package, and can contain targets created by rules. The file can also be named BUILD.bazel.
See BUILD File. Takes precedence over a BUILD file in the same directory.
A file that defines rules, macros, and constants written in Starlark. These can then be imported into BUILD files using the load() function.
The dependency graph that Bazel constructs and traverses to perform a build. Includes nodes like targets, configured targets, actions, and artifacts. A build is considered complete when all artifacts on which a set of requested targets depend are verified as up-to-date.
A Starlark-defined piece of configuration. Transitions can set build settings to change a subgraph's configuration. If exposed to the user as a command-line flag, also known as a build flag.
A build that doesn't use the results of earlier builds. This is generally slower than an incremental build but commonly considered to be more correct. Bazel guarantees both clean and incremental builds are always correct.
The bazel command-line client automatically starts a background server on the local machine to execute Bazel commands. The server persists across commands but automatically stops after a period of inactivity (or explicitly via bazel shutdown). Splitting Bazel into a server and client helps amortize JVM startup time and supports faster incremental builds because the action graph remains in memory across commands.
Used on the command line to invoke different Bazel functions, like bazel build, bazel test, bazel run, and bazel query.
A set of flags specific to a command. Command flags are specified after the command (bazel build <command flags>). Flags can be applicable to one or more commands. For example, --configure is a flag exclusively for the bazel sync command, but --keep_going is applicable to sync, build, test and more. Flags are often used for configuration purposes, so changes in flag values can cause Bazel to invalidate in-memory graphs and restart the analysis phase.
Information outside of rule definitions that impacts how rules generate actions. Every build has at least one configuration specifying the target platform, action environment variables, and command-line build flags. Transitions may create additional configurations, such as for host tools or cross-compilation.
See also: Configurations
The process of only including the pieces of configuration a target actually needs. For example, if you build Java binary //:j with C++ dependency //:c, it's wasteful to include the value of --javacopt in the configuration of //:c because changing --javacopt unnecessarily breaks C++ build cacheability.
A query tool that queries over configured targets (after the analysis phase completes). This means select() and build flags (such as --platforms) are accurately reflected in the results.
See also: cquery documentation
The result of evaluating a target with a configuration. The analysis phase produces this by combining the build's options with the targets that need to be built. For example, if //:foo builds for two different architectures in the same build, it has two configured targets: <//:foo, x86> and <//:foo, arm>.
A build is correct when its output faithfully reflects the state of its transitive inputs. To achieve correct builds, Bazel strives to be hermetic, reproducible, and making build analysis and action execution deterministic.
A directed edge between two targets. A target //:foo has a target dependency on target //:bar if //:foo's attribute values contain a reference to //:bar. //:foo has an action dependency on //:bar if an action in //:foo depends on an input artifact created by an action in //:bar.
In certain contexts, it could also refer to an external dependency; see modules.
A data structure for collecting data on transitive dependencies. Optimized so that merging depsets is time and space efficient, because it’s common to have very large depsets (hundreds of thousands of files). Implemented to recursively refer to other depsets for space efficiency reasons. Rule implementations should not “flatten” depsets by converting them to lists unless the rule is at the top level of the build graph. Flattening large depsets incurs huge memory consumption. Also known as nested sets in Bazel's internal implementation.
See also: Depset documentation
A local on-disk blob store for the remote caching feature. Can be used in conjunction with an actual remote blob store.
A read-only directory containing files that Bazel would otherwise fetch from the internet using repository rules. Enables builds to run fully offline.
An execution strategy that selects between local and remote execution based on various heuristics, and uses the execution results of the faster successful method. Certain actions are executed faster locally (for example, linking) and others are faster remotely (for example, highly parallelizable compilation). A dynamic execution strategy can provide the best possible incremental and clean build times.
The third phase of a build. Executes the actions in the action graph created during the analysis phase. These actions invoke executables (compilers, scripts) to read and write artifacts. Spawn strategies control how these actions are executed: locally, remotely, dynamically, sandboxed, docker, and so on.
A directory in the workspace’s output base directory where local actions are executed in non-sandboxed builds. The directory contents are mostly symlinks of input artifacts from the workspace. The execution root also contains symlinks to external repositories as other inputs and the bazel-out directory to store outputs. Prepared during the loading phase by creating a symlink forest of the directories that represent the transitive closure of packages on which a build depends. Accessible with bazel info execution_root on the command line.
See Artifact.
A build is hermetic if there are no external influences on its build and test operations, which helps to make sure that results are deterministic and correct. For example, hermetic builds typically disallow network access to actions, restrict access to declared inputs, use fixed timestamps and timezones, restrict access to environment variables, and use fixed seeds for random number generators
An incremental build reuses the results of earlier builds to reduce build time and resource usage. Dependency checking and caching aim to produce correct results for this type of build. An incremental build is the opposite of a clean build.
An identifier for a target. Generally has the form @repo//path/to/package:target, where repo is the (apparent) name of the repository containing the target, path/to/package is the path to the directory that contains the BUILD file declaring the target (this directory is also known as the package), and target is the name of the target itself. Depending on the situation, parts of this syntax may be omitted.
See also: Labels
The first phase of a build where Bazel executes BUILD files to create packages. Macros and certain functions like glob() are evaluated in this phase. Interleaved with the second phase of the build, the analysis phase, to build up a target graph.
A mechanism to compose multiple rule target declarations together under a single Starlark function. Enables reusing common rule declaration patterns across BUILD files. Expanded to the underlying rule target declarations during the loading phase.
See also: Macro documentation
A short, human-readable string selected by a rule author to quickly understand what an action in the rule is doing. Mnemonics can be used as identifiers for spawn strategy selections. Some examples of action mnemonics are Javac from Java rules, CppCompile from C++ rules, and AndroidManifestMerger from Android rules.
A Bazel project that can have multiple versions, each of which can have dependencies on other modules. This is analogous to familiar concepts in other dependency management systems, such as a Maven artifact, an npm package, a Go module, or a Cargo crate. Modules form the backbone of Bazel's external dependency management system.
Each module is backed by a repo with a MODULE.bazel file at its root. This file contains metadata about the module itself (such as its name and version), its direct dependencies, and various other data including toolchain registrations and module extension input.
Module metadata is hosted in Bazel registries.
See also: Bazel modules
A piece of logic that can be run to generate repos by reading inputs from across the module dependency graph and invoking repo rules. Module extensions have capabilities similar to repo rules, allowing them to access the internet, perform file I/O, and so on.
See also: Module extensions
Rules that are built into Bazel and implemented in Java. Such rules appear in .bzl files as functions in the native module (for example, native.cc_library or native.java_library). User-defined rules (non-native) are created using Starlark.
A workspace-specific directory to store Bazel output files. Used to separate outputs from the workspace's source tree (the main repo). Located in the output user root.
A group of files that is expected to be built when Bazel finishes building a target. Rules put their usual outputs in the “default output group” (e.g the .jar file of a java_library, .a and .so for cc_library targets). The default output group is the output group whose artifacts are built when a target is requested on the command line. Rules can define more named output groups that can be explicitly specified in BUILD files (filegroup rule) or the command line (--output_groups flag).
A user-specific directory to store Bazel‘s outputs. The directory name is derived from the user’s system username. Prevents output file collisions if multiple users are building the same project on the system at the same time. Contains subdirectories corresponding to build outputs of individual workspaces, also known as output bases.
The set of targets defined by a BUILD file. A package‘s name is the BUILD file’s path relative to the repo root. A package can contain subpackages, or subdirectories containing BUILD files, thus forming a package hierarchy.
A target representing a set of packages. Often used in visibility attribute values.
A “machine type” involved in a build. This includes the machine Bazel runs on (the “host” platform), the machines build tools execute on (“exec” platforms), and the machines targets are built for (“target platforms”).
A schema describing a unit of information to pass between rule targets along dependency relationships. Typically this contains information like compiler options, transitive source or output files, and build metadata. Frequently used in conjunction with depsets to efficiently store accumulated transitive data. An example of a built-in provider is DefaultInfo.
Note: The object holding specific data for a given rule target is referred to as a “provider instance”, although sometimes this is conflated with “provider”.
See also: Provider documentation
The process of analyzing a build graph to understand target properties and dependency structures. Bazel supports three query variants: query, cquery, and aquery.
A query tool that operates over the build‘s post-loading phase target graph. This is relatively fast, but can’t analyze the effects of select(), build flags, artifacts, or build actions.
See also: Query how-to, Query reference
A directory tree with a boundary marker file at its root, containing source files that can be used in a Bazel build. Often shortened to just repo.
A repo boundary marker file can be MODULE.bazel (signaling that this repo represents a Bazel module), REPO.bazel, or in legacy contexts, WORKSPACE or WORKSPACE.bazel. Any repo boundary marker file will signify the boundary of a repo; multiple such files can coexist in a directory.
The main repo is the repo in which the current Bazel command is being run.
External repos are defined by specifying modules in MODULE.bazel files, or invoking repo rules in module extensions. They can be fetched on demand to a predetermined “magical” location on disk.
Each repo has a unique, constant canonical name, and potentially different apparent names when viewed from other repos.
See also: External dependencies overview
A shared content-addressable cache of files downloaded by Bazel for builds, shareable across workspaces. Enables offline builds after the initial download. Commonly used to cache files downloaded through repository rules like http_archive and repository rule APIs like repository_ctx.download. Files are cached only if their SHA-256 checksums are specified for the download.
A schema for repository definitions that tells Bazel how to materialize (or “fetch”) a repository. Often shortened to just repo rule. Repo rules are invoked by Bazel internally to define repos backed by modules, or can be invoked by module extensions. Repo rules can access the internet or perform file I/O; the most common repo rule is http_archive to download an archive containing source files from the internet.
See also: Repo rule documentation
The property of a build or test that a set of inputs to the build or test will always produce the same set of outputs every time, regardless of time, method, or environment. Note that this does not necessarily imply that the outputs are correct or the desired outputs.
A schema for defining rule targets in a BUILD file, such as cc_library. From the perspective of a BUILD file author, a rule consists of a set of attributes and black box logic. The logic tells the rule target how to produce output artifacts and pass information to other rule targets. From the perspective of .bzl authors, rules are the primary way to extend Bazel to support new programming languages and environments.
Rules are instantiated to produce rule targets in the loading phase. In the analysis phase rule targets communicate information to their downstream dependencies in the form of providers, and register actions describing how to generate their output artifacts. These actions are run in the execution phase.
Note: Historically the term “rule” has been used to refer to a rule target. This usage was inherited from tools like Make, but causes confusion and should be avoided for Bazel.
See also: Rules documentation
A target that is an instance of a rule. Contrasts with file targets and package groups. Not to be confused with rule.
The runtime dependencies of an executable target. Most commonly, the executable is the executable output of a test rule, and the runfiles are runtime data dependencies of the test. Before the invocation of the executable (during bazel test), Bazel prepares the tree of runfiles alongside the test executable according to their source directory structure.
See also: Runfiles documentation
A technique to isolate a running action inside a restricted and temporary execution root, helping to ensure that it doesn’t read undeclared inputs or write undeclared outputs. Sandboxing greatly improves hermeticity, but usually has a performance cost, and requires support from the operating system. The performance cost depends on the platform. On Linux, it's not significant, but on macOS it can make sandboxing unusable.
Skyframe is the core parallel, functional, and incremental evaluation framework of Bazel.
A feature to embed additional information into Bazel-built artifacts. For example, this can be used for source control, build time and other workspace or environment-related information for release builds. Enable through the --workspace_status_command flag and rules that support the stamp attribute.
The extension language for writing rules and macros. A restricted subset of Python (syntactically and grammatically) aimed for the purpose of configuration, and for better performance. Uses the .bzl file extension. BUILD files use an even more restricted version of Starlark (such as no def function definitions), formerly known as Skylark.
See also: Starlark language documentation
The set of flags specified between bazel and the command, for example, bazel --host_jvm_debug build. These flags modify the configuration of the Bazel server, so any modification to startup flags causes a server restart. Startup flags are not specific to any command.
An object that is defined in a BUILD file and identified by a label. Targets represent the buildable units of a workspace from the perspective of the end user.
A target that is declared by instantiating a rule is called a rule target. Depending on the rule, these may be runnable (like cc_binary) or testable (like cc_test). Rule targets typically depend on other targets via their attributes (such as deps); these dependencies form the basis of the target graph.
Aside from rule targets, there are also file targets and package group targets. File targets correspond to artifacts that are referenced within a BUILD file. As a special case, the BUILD file of any package is always considered a source file target in that package.
Targets are discovered during the loading phase. During the analysis phase, targets are associated with build configurations to form configured targets.
An in-memory graph of targets and their dependencies. Produced during the loading phase and used as an input to the analysis phase.
A way to specify a group of targets on the command line. Commonly used patterns are :all (all rule targets), :* (all rule + file targets), ... (current package and all subpackages recursively). Can be used in combination, for example, //...:* means all rule and file targets in all packages recursively from the root of the workspace.
Rule targets instantiated from test rules, and therefore contains a test executable. A return code of zero from the completion of the executable indicates test success. The exact contract between Bazel and tests (such as test environment variables, test result collection methods) is specified in the Test Encyclopedia.
A set of tools to build outputs for a language. Typically, a toolchain includes compilers, linkers, interpreters or/and linters. A toolchain can also vary by platform, that is, a Unix compiler toolchain's components may differ for the Windows variant, even though the toolchain is for the same language. Selecting the right toolchain for the platform is known as toolchain resolution.
A build target is top-level if it’s requested on the Bazel command line. For example, if //:foo depends on //:bar, and bazel build //:foo is called, then for this build, //:foo is top-level, and //:bar isn’t top-level, although both targets will need to be built. An important difference between top-level and non-top-level targets is that command flags set on the Bazel command line (or via .bazelrc) will set the configuration for top-level targets, but might be modified by a transition for non-top-level targets.
A mapping of configuration state from one value to another. Enables targets in the build graph to have different configurations, even if they were instantiated from the same rule. A common usage of transitions is with split transitions, where certain parts of the target graph is forked with distinct configurations for each fork. For example, one can build an Android APK with native binaries compiled for ARM and x86 using split transitions in a single build.
See also: User-defined transitions
An artifact that represents a collection of files. Since these files are not themselves artifacts, an action operating on them must instead register the tree artifact as its input or output.
One of two mechanisms for preventing unwanted dependencies in the build system: target visibility for controlling whether a target can be depended upon by other targets; and load visibility for controlling whether a BUILD or .bzl file may load a given .bzl file. Without context, usually “visibility” refers to target visibility.
See also: Visibility documentation
The environment shared by all Bazel commands run from the same main repository.
Note that historically the concepts of “repository” and “workspace” have been conflated; the term “workspace” has often been used to refer to the main repository, and sometimes even used as a synonym of “repository”. Such usage should be avoided for clarity.