Events

Bazel has a fairly sophisticated protocol for reporting events that occur during the progress of a build. Bzl acts as a bes_backend and typically runs via the following flags:

--bes_backend=localhost:1080
--bes_timeout=5s
--build_event_publish_all_actions=true

Events are streamed back up into the browser and presented in a timeline view that allows you to see:

• all events by time
• all events of a particular type
• specific time window

To view events in realtime during a build or test invocation, click the [Build] or [Test] buttons:

Dragging a window/level will filter the event within that time window:

You can clear the selection by clicking away, or use the menu:

Click on an event type to filter to only that type:

Event Types

A brief explanation of the types of build events (not an exhaustive list):

1. Started: provides a summary of the build metadata including start time, the version of bazel, the command, description of options. This is a good overview.
2. Structured Command Line: an exhaustive list of the precise configuration provided by the bazel client. Use this to see the exact set of flags used during the build.
3. Options Parsed: another view of the options.
4. Build Metadata: user configurable metadata about the build. Can be populated with the --build_metadata flag (e.g. --build_metdata=JOB_ID=12345).
5. Progress: console logging, typically delivered via stderr.
6. Workspace Configuration: provides the execution root.
7. Configuration: the configuration for the build including such things as cpu and platform.
8. Configured: the rule and label after the configuration has been resolved.
9. Workspace Status: key value pairs populated via the --workspace_status_command.
10. Named Set of Files: a set of files. In order to be efficient, bazel groups files into sets to avoid duplication where possible.
11. Action: the individual units of work involved in a build. Each one represents a process that was executed either on the local workstation or a remote machine. Each action has a mnemonic, an action key hash, a command line to execute, and a list of environment variables. The mnemonic is sort of like a type name that works with flags such as --spawn_strategy and others.
12. Test Result: an event that reports test success or failure, whether it was cached, and links to the log file.
13. Build Metrics: a summary of actions executed, memory usage, etc.
14. Build Tool Logs: a summary of the time spent including the critical path.
15. Completed: reports files outputted by a target in their respective output groups.
16. Aborted: if the build was aborted.
17. Finished: overall success or failure.

These represent the inner Bazel Build Events. Each one is wrapped in an outer Ordered Build Event envelope that represents a more generic event container that imposes a sequencing mechanism.