A quick tip on how to execute multiple run commands in parallel.

This blog post explains how to use a custom C++ toolchain based on clang 12 with libc++-12 in Bazel on Ubuntu 20.04.

Bazel supports scaling out builds with a remote execution system. Unfortunately, it is very easy for ruleset authors to release rules that work when executed locally but do not work when executed remotely. This blog post explains ruleset authors can set up a simple remote execution system to verify that their rulesets work correctly.

In Bazel, stamping is the process of embedding additional information into built binaries, such as the source control revision or other workspace-related information. Rules that support stamping typically include an integer stamp attribute, where 1 means “always stamp”, 0 means “never stamp”, and -1 means “use the Bazel build --stamp flag. This blog post explains how to write a rule that supports these values.

Many Bazel attributes support the use of predefined variables and functions such as @D for output directory or $(location //foo:bar) to get the path to a label. But what if you want to apply some sort of tranformation to these variables, or define your own custom make variables? This blog post explains how.

Bazel developers are currently working on adding the ability to retrieve secrets using a credential-helper executable, similar to how other tools like Docker and Git handle managing secrets. Until then, the recommended approach is to store secrets in ~/.netrc. This blog post explains how to write a custom Bazel rule which reads secrets from ~/.netrc.

In general, one should never check in binary artifacts into Git; it is better to retrieve them from an artifact repository or a website using http_archive(). However, sometimes convenience is more important than ideological purity. To handle these cases, I wrote a simple workspace rule named local_archive().

When writing Bazel tests using sh_test(), I often find myself needing to compare two collections for equivalence. For example, I might compare a directory listing against a set of expected files or directories, or the list of files and directories in a .tar file against a set of expected items. This blog post provides some tips and tricks as to how to do so.

Dealing with Bazel runfiles is one of the most annoying things about using Bazel. Fortunately, Bazel provides a library to make resolving runfiles from Bash scripts easy.

sh_test is my most commonly used test rule by far. It is the easiest way to write quick-and-dirty tests and works nearly everywhere. For anything beyond the most trivial tests, I use Bazel’s Bash unit test framework. This explains what the framework is and how to use it.