| --- |
| layout: documentation |
| title: Tutorial - Introduction |
| --- |
| |
| # Tutorial - Introduction |
| |
| You can use Bazel to build a variety of software outputs, including |
| Linux and Mac OS X applications written in Java, C++ and Objective-C. You can |
| also use Bazel to build software for other platforms or written in other |
| languages. |
| |
| This tutorial shows how to use Bazel to build the following: |
| |
| * An Android app |
| * An iOS app |
| * A mobile backend server running on App Engine |
| |
| In this tutorial, you'll learn how to: |
| |
| * Set up a Bazel workspace and create a `WORKSPACE` file |
| * Create `BUILD` files that contain the instructions used by Bazel to build |
| the software |
| * Run builds using the Bazel command line tool |
| |
| ## Requirements |
| |
| You can follow the steps in this tutorial on either a Linux or Mac OS X system. |
| However, you can only build the iOS app if you are running Bazel on OS X. If |
| you are using Linux, you can skip the iOS instructions and still complete |
| the rest of the tutorial steps. |
| |
| ## Sample project |
| |
| You don't have to write your own mobile apps and backend server to use this |
| tutorial. Instead, you'll use a sample project hosted on GitHub. The sample |
| project is hosted at the following location: |
| |
| [https://github.com/bazelbuild/examples/](https://github.com/bazelbuild/examples/) |
| |
| You'll grab the sample project files in the next step in this tutorial. |
| |
| ## What's next |
| |
| Let's start off by [setting up](environment.md) the tutorial environment. |
