Buck2

WARNING: This project is not yet polished. We are continuing to develop it in the open, but don't expect it to be suitable for most people until Feb/Mar/Apr 2023 (at which point we'll properly announce it). If you try and use it, you will probably have a bad time. If you are willing to work closely with us, please give it a go and let us know what is blocking you.

This repo contains the code for the Buck2 build system - the successor to the original Buck build system. To understand why it might be interesting, see this explainer. For the moment, we only test it on Linux, and don't recommend running benchmarks as features like the disk cache are not entirely implemented in the open source build.

Getting started

Building Buck2

To build Buck2 type cargo build --bin=buck2 --release from this directory and copy the resulting binary (probably target/release/buck2) to your $PATH. Typing buck2 --help should now work.

Building sample targets

FIXME(marwhal): This section needs to be made to work

If you cd examples/prelude and type buck2 build ... that will build a number of targets in a variety of languages. Doing so requires that python3 and clang are both on your $PATH.

Bootstrapping Buck2

To build Buck2 using Buck2:

• Install protobuf:
  • On Ubuntu Linux 20.04: Install protoc from this link
  • On Ubuntu Linux 22.04: apt-get install protobuf-compiler (check protoc --version is 3.12 or higher)
  • On Fedora Linux 36 and later: sudo dnf install protobuf-devel protobuf-compiler
  • On Mac: brew install protobuf
• Install reindeer, which is used to make Buck targets for Rust libraries.
• Run reindeer --third-party-dir shim/third-party/rust vendor
• Run reindeer --third-party-dir shim/third-party/rust buckify --stdout > shim/third-party/rust/BUCK_OSS
• Run buck2 build :buck2

Note that the resulting binary will be compiled without optimisations or jemalloc, so we recommend using the Cargo-produced binary in further development.

Making your own project

A Buck2 project requires:

• A .buckconfig file in the root which has a [repositories] section listing out interesting cells. We recommend copying from examples/prelude to ensure it contains the necessary fields.
• A prelude directory, which should be produced with git submodule add https://github.com/facebookincubator/buck2-prelude.git prelude
• A toolchains directory, which specifies where to find the relevant toolchains. We recommend copying from examples/prelude to start, but you may wish to use alternative toolchains.
• Some BUILD files that specify the targets specific to your project.

Terminology conventions

• A target, e.g. fbcode//buck2:buck2, is something a user defines that is an instance of a rule, which can be built.
• A rule, e.g. cxx_library, is an implementation of how something is built.
• Loading a TARGETS/BUCK file involves evaluating the Starlark and doing attribute coercion/resolution. It can be done with buck2 cquery fbcode//buck2:buck2 or buck2 cquery 'deps(fbcode//buck2:buck2)' to do it recursively.
• Analysing a target involves running the associated rule to produce the providers. It can be done with buck2 audit providers fbcode//buck2:buck2.
• Building a target involves demanding the artifacts from a provider (e.g. DefaultInfo). It can be done with buck2 build fbcode//buck2:buck2.

Coding conventions

Beyond the obvious (well-tested, easy to read) we prefer guidelines that are automatically enforced, e.g. through rust fmt, Clippy or the custom linter we have written. Some rules:

• Use the utilities from Gazebo where they are useful, in particular, dupe.
• Prefer to_owned to convert &str to String.
• Qualify anyhow::Result rather than use anyhow::Result.
• Most errors should be returned as anyhow::Result. Inspecting errors outside tests and the top-level error handler is strongly discouraged.
• Most errors should be constructed with thiserror deriving enum values, not raw anyhow!.
• We use the derivative library to derive the PartialEq and Hash traits when some fields should be ignored.
• Prefer use crate::foo::bar over use super::bar or use crate::foo::*, apart from test modules which often have use super::* at the top.
• Modules should either have submodules or types/functions/constants, but not both.

Error messages

• Names (of variables, targets, files, etc) should be quoted with backticks, e.g. Variable `x` not defined.
• Lists should use square brackets, e.g. Available targets: [`aa`, `bb`].
• Error messages should start with an upper case letter. Error messages should not end with a period.

License

Buck2 is both MIT and Apache License, Version 2.0 licensed, as found in the LICENSE-MIT and LICENSE-APACHE files.