Command Line Interface

Here’s brief summary of the CLI operations. Please refer to bzl --help for more information.

Build, test, query, help, …

Any bazel-native command is passed through directly to the underlying bazel:

$ bzl build //foo:bar
$ bzl query deps(//foo:bar) --output label_kind
...

Serve/open

Open the user interface in the current workspace:

$ bzl serve           # starts webserver
$ bzl open            # opens browser tab in current workspace
$ bzl open //foo:bar  # opens browser tab at given label

License

Print or renew your license:

$ bzl license info
$ bzl license renew
Backed-up previous license to /Users/foo/.bzl/license.key.Updated /Users/foo/.bzl/license.key

Use

Use is a handy repository rule generator. Never write another repository rule by hand again! (or, at least less frequently). Examples:

$ bzl use rules_proto

# Branch: master
# Commit: a0761ed101b939e19d83b2da5f59034bffc19c12
# Date: 2021-01-26 15:30:54 +0000 UTC
# URL: https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_proto/commit/a0761ed101b939e19d83b2da5f59034bffc19c12
#
# Merge pull request #81 from Yannic/patch-3
#
# Bump bazel-toolchains to 3.7.2
# Size: 11622 (12 kB)
http_archive(
    name = "rules_proto",
    sha256 = "2a20fd8af3cad3fbab9fd3aec4a137621e0c31f858af213a7ae0f997723fc4a9",
    strip_prefix = "rules_proto-a0761ed101b939e19d83b2da5f59034bffc19c12",
    urls = ["https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_proto/archive/a0761ed101b939e19d83b2da5f59034bffc19c12.tar.gz"],
)

$ bzl use go github.com/google/uuid v1.2.0

# Release: v1.2.0
# TargetCommitish: master
# Date: 2021-01-22 18:20:15 +0000 UTC
# URL: https://github.com/google/uuid/releases/tag/v1.2.0
# Size: 14158 (14 kB)
go_repository(
    name = "com_github_google_uuid",
    importpath = "github.com/google/uuid",
    tag = "v1.2.0",
)

$ bzl use file https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/underscore.js/1.12.0/underscore-min.js

# HTTP/2.0 200 OK
# Expires: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 02:01:30 GMT
# Last-Modified: Mon, 21 Dec 2020 09:19:03 GMT
# Server: cloudflare
# Size: 19358 (19 kB)
http_file(
    name = "cdnjs_cloudflare_com_ajax_libs_underscore_js_1_12_0_underscore_min_js",
    sha256 = "1bc0ea4e2fe66ac337fb1863bbdb4c8f044ee4e84dbe0f0f1b3959bebfa539c1",
    urls = ["https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/underscore.js/1.12.0/underscore-min.js"],
)

Install

List or view published bazel releases:

$ bzl install
4.0.0
3.7.2 (installed)
3.7.1 (installed)
3.7.0 (installed)
3.6.0 (installed)
...

$ bzl install 4.0.0
2021/01/29 18:56:56 Downloading https://releases.bazel.build/4.0.0/release/bazel-4.0.0-darwin-x86_64...

This caches downloaded binaries in the same location as bazelisk.

Language Server

The language server is typically only used by the VSCode extension, but it functions as an LSP server for BUILD files.

$ bzl lsp serve