Requirements for an output directory layout:
The solution that's currently implemented:
~/.cache/bazel
on Linux, /private/var/tmp
on macOS, and on Windows it defaults to %HOME%
if set, else %USERPROFILE%
if set, else the result of calling SHGetKnownFolderPath()
with the FOLDERID_Profile
flag set. If the environment variable $TEST_TMPDIR
is set, as in a test of bazel itself, then that value overrides the default.outputRoot/_bazel_$USER
. This is called the outputUserRoot directory.outputUserRoot
directory, we create an installBase
directory whose name is “install” plus the MD5 hash of the Bazel installation manifest.outputUserRoot
directory, we also create an outputBase
directory whose name is the MD5 hash of the path name of the workspace directory. So, for example, if Bazel is running in the workspace directory /home/user/src/my-project
(or in a directory symlinked to that one), then we create an output base directory called: /home/user/.cache/bazel/_bazel_user/7ffd56a6e4cb724ea575aba15733d113
.--output_base
startup option to override the default output base directory. For example, bazel --output_base=/tmp/bazel/output build x/y:z
.--output_user_root
startup option to override the default install base and output base directories. For example: bazel --output_user_root=/tmp/bazel build x/y:z
.We put symlinks “bazel-<workspace-name>”, “bazel-out”, “bazel-testlogs”, and “bazel-bin” in the workspace directory; these symlinks points to some directories inside a target-specific directory inside the output directory. These symlinks are only for the user's convenience, as Bazel itself does not use them. Also, we only do this if the workspace directory is writable.
The directories are laid out as follows:
The layout of the *.runfiles directories is documented in more detail in the places pointed to by RunfilesSupport.
bazel clean
bazel clean
does an rm -rf
on the outputPath
and the action_cache
directory. It also removes the workspace symlinks. The --expunge
option will clean the entire outputBase.