Bazel build rules for Zig

Build Zig code with the Bazel build system.

Status

Take a look at the planned functionality tracking issue to get a picture of which functionality is already implemented and what is still missing.

Motivation

Why would you use Bazel to build Zig code, when Zig comes with its own perfectly fine build system?

These Bazel rules are not meant as competition to the Zig build system. If your project fits well within the scope of Zig's build system, in particular, it only uses Zig code and perhaps C/C++ code, then Zig's build system will probably work very well for your use-case.

Bazel is useful for polyglot, monorepo projects, especially if they are very large. If your project involves multiple programming languages and if some of them are not supported by Zig's build system, or if your project involves complex code-generation steps or requires a lot of custom build steps, then Bazel may be a good choice. If your project is already a Bazel project and you want to add Zig code to it then this rule set is for you.

Bazel has builtin support for cross-compilation and build configuration, meaning it can support Zig's cross-compilation and build configuration features well.

Installation

The instructions assume basic familiarity with the Bazel build system. Take a look at Bazel's documentation if you are unfamiliar.

Consider the Additional Setup section as well.

Using Bzlmod with Bazel >=7

Bzlmod is Bazel's new dependency manager. You can read more about it in the Bazel documentation. If you use bzlmod, then you can skip the WORKSPACE section below. Take a look at Bazel's migration guide if you are switching from WORKSPACE to bzlmod.

To install a release version of rules_zig follow the installation instructions given in the corresponding release notes.

To install a development version add the following to your MODULE.bazel file:

bazel_dep(name = "rules_zig")
archive_override(
    module_name = "rules_zig",
    integrity = "sha256-$SHA256",
    strip_prefix = "rules_zig-$COMMIT",
    urls = ["https://github.com/aherrmann/rules_zig/archive/$COMMIT.tar.gz"],
)

Note, $SHA256 and $COMMIT are placeholders that you need to fill in. Take a look at the Bazel documentation for further information.

Using WORKSPACE

The old way of managing external dependencies with Bazel is to declare them in your WORKSPACE file. You can read more about it in the Bazel documentation. If you use the WORKSPACE approach, then you can skip the bzlmod section above.

To install a release version of rules_zig follow the installation instructions given in the corresponding release notes.

To install a development version add the following to your WORKSPACE file:

load("@bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/repo:http.bzl", "http_archive")

http_archive(
    name = "rules_zig",
    sha256 = "$SHA256",
    strip_prefix = "rules_zig-$COMMIT",
    urls = ["https://github.com/aherrmann/rules_zig/archive/$COMMIT.tar.gz"],
)

load(
    "@rules_zig//zig:repositories.bzl",
    "rules_zig_dependencies",
    "zig_register_toolchains",
)

rules_zig_dependencies()

zig_register_toolchains(
    name = "zig",
    zig_version = "0.13.0",
)

Note, $SHA256 and $COMMIT are placeholders that you need to fill in. Take a look at the Bazel documentation for further information.

Additional Setup

Zig Cache

The Zig compiler caches intermediate outputs on disk. This cache is shared and persisted between Bazel builds and build actions. You can configure the cache directory using the following set of environment variables, you can configure them through Bazel by using the --repo_env flag.

• RULES_ZIG_CACHE_PREFIX_LINUX: Cache directory on Linux, default /tmp/zig-cache.
• RULES_ZIG_CACHE_PREFIX_MACOS: Cache directory on MacOS, default /var/tmp/zig-cache.
• RULES_ZIG_CACHE_PREFIX_WINDOWS: Cache directory on Windows, default C:\Temp\zig-cache.
• RULES_ZIG_CACHE_PREFIX: Cache directory fall-back for all platforms, default /tmp/zig-cache.

Note

On Bazel 7 and above you need to explicitly allow persistence in the sandbox. You can use the following .bazelrc snippet, adjust the paths depending on your cache configuration.

common --enable_platform_specific_config
# You can configure `/tmp/zig-cache`, or similar, specifically,
# if you can ensure that the directory exists before the build.
build:linux --sandbox_add_mount_pair=/tmp
build:macos --sandbox_add_mount_pair=/var/tmp
build:windows --sandbox_add_mount_pair=C:\Temp

Usage Examples

Examples can be found among the end-to-end tests under ./e2e/workspace.

Reference Documentation

Generated API documentation for the provided rules is available in ./docs/rules.md.

Runfiles Library Documentation

Documentation for the Zig runfiles library can be found in ./zig/runfiles/guide.md.