Develop with Bazel

The Bazel-based dev loop is the one our CI runs. Use this if you want the most reproducible setup or if your editor integration prefers Bazel.

Prerequisites

• Bazel 7.x or 8.x (Bazelisk recommended).
• A C++ toolchain (clang or gcc) for native dependencies.
• On macOS: XCode command-line tools.
• On Linux: mold is automatically used if available.

First build

git clone https://github.com/TraceMachina/nativelink
cd nativelink
bazel test //...

The first bazel test will take 10-20 minutes as it builds the toolchain and dependencies. Subsequent builds finish in seconds.

build --remote_cache=grpc://localhost:50051
build --remote_executor=grpc://localhost:50051

Common commands

# Run all tests.
bazel test //...

# Run a specific test target.
bazel test //nativelink-store/tests:s3_store_test

# Build the server binary.
bazel build //nativelink:nativelink

# Run the built binary against a config.
bazel run //nativelink -- /path/to/config.json5

# Format Rust code.
bazel run //tools:rustfmt-fix

Editor integration

For rust-analyzer:

bazel run //tools:gen-rust-project

This generates a rust-project.json that VS Code / Helix / your editor of choice will pick up.

Common pitfalls

• No such file or directory: .bazelrc.lre — the lre config is only available if you've run nix develop first. Either set up Nix or comment out the LRE-specific lines in .bazelrc.
• Slow first build with no cache — expected. Subsequent builds reuse Bazel's local cache; pointing at a remote NativeLink cluster makes a fresh clone fast for everyone.

For non-Bazel workflows, see Develop with Cargo or Develop with Nix.