buildifier is a tool for formatting bazel BUILD and .bzl files with a standard convention.
Build the tool:
- Checkout the repo and then either via
go install
orbazel build //buildifier
- If you already have 'go' installed, then build a binary via:
go install github.com/bazelbuild/buildtools/buildifier@latest
Use buildifier to create standardized formatting for BUILD and .bzl files in the same way that clang-format is used for source files.
$ buildifier path/to/file
You can also process multiple files at once:
$ buildifier path/to/file1 path/to/file2
You can make buildifier automatically find all Starlark files (i.e. BUILD, WORKSPACE, .bzl, or .sky) in a directory recursively:
$ buildifier -r path/to/dir
Buildifier supports the following file types: BUILD
, WORKSPACE
, .bzl
, and
default, the latter is reserved for Starlark files buildifier doesn't know about
(e.g. configuration files for third-party projects that use Starlark). The
formatting rules for WORKSPACE files are the same as for BUILD files (both are
declarative and have stricter formatting rules), and default files are formatted
similarly to .bzl files, allowing more flexibility. Different linter warnings
may be limited to any subset of these file types, e.g. a certain warning may be
only relevant to Bazel files (i.e. BUILD
, WORKSPACE
, and .bzl
) or to
non-WORKSPACE files.
Buildifier automatically detects the file type by its filename, taking into
account optional prefixes and suffixes, e.g. BUILD
, BUILD.oss
, or
BUILD.bazel
will be detected as BUILD files, and build_defs.bzl.oss
is a
.bzl file. Files with unknown names (e.g. foo.bar
) or files passed via stdin
will be treated as default file type. To override the automatic file type
detection use the --type
flag explicitly:
$ cat foo.bar | buildifier --type=build
$ cat foo.bar | buildifier --type=bzl
$ cat foo.bar | buildifier --type=workspace
$ cat foo.bar | buildifier --type=default
Buildifier has an integrated linter that can point out and in some cases automatically fix various issues. To use it launch one of the following commands to show and to fix the issues correspondingly (note that some issues cannot be fixed automatically):
buildifier --lint=warn path/to/file
buildifier --lint=fix path/to/file
By default, the linter searches for all known issues relevant for the given file type except those that are marked with "Disabled by default" in the documentation.
You can specify the categories using the --warnings
flag either by providing
the categories explicitly:
buildifier --lint=warn --warnings=positional-args,duplicated-name
or by modifying the default warnings set by using +
or -
modifiers before
each warning category:
buildifier --lint=warn --warnings=-positional-args,+unsorted-dict-items
It's also possible to provide --warnings=all
to use all supported warnings
categories (they will still be limited to relevant warnings for the given file
type).
See also the full list or the supported warnings.
You can also invoke buildifier via the Bazel rule.
WORKSPACE
file:
load("@bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/repo:http.bzl", "http_archive")
# buildifier is written in Go and hence needs rules_go to be built.
# See https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_go for the up to date setup instructions.
http_archive(
name = "io_bazel_rules_go",
sha256 = "d6b2513456fe2229811da7eb67a444be7785f5323c6708b38d851d2b51e54d83",
urls = [
"https://mirror.bazel.build/github.com/bazelbuild/rules_go/releases/download/v0.30.0/rules_go-v0.30.0.zip",
"https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_go/releases/download/v0.30.0/rules_go-v0.30.0.zip",
],
)
load("@io_bazel_rules_go//go:deps.bzl", "go_rules_dependencies")
go_rules_dependencies()
load("@io_bazel_rules_go//go:deps.bzl", "go_register_toolchains")
go_register_toolchains(version = "1.17.2")
http_archive(
name = "bazel_gazelle",
sha256 = "de69a09dc70417580aabf20a28619bb3ef60d038470c7cf8442fafcf627c21cb",
urls = [
"https://mirror.bazel.build/github.com/bazelbuild/bazel-gazelle/releases/download/v0.24.0/bazel-gazelle-v0.24.0.tar.gz",
"https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel-gazelle/releases/download/v0.24.0/bazel-gazelle-v0.24.0.tar.gz",
],
)
load("@bazel_gazelle//:deps.bzl", "gazelle_dependencies")
# If you use WORKSPACE.bazel, use the following line instead of the bare gazelle_dependencies():
# gazelle_dependencies(go_repository_default_config = "@//:WORKSPACE.bazel")
gazelle_dependencies()
http_archive(
name = "com_google_protobuf",
sha256 = "3bd7828aa5af4b13b99c191e8b1e884ebfa9ad371b0ce264605d347f135d2568",
strip_prefix = "protobuf-3.19.4",
urls = [
"https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/archive/v3.19.4.tar.gz",
],
)
load("@com_google_protobuf//:protobuf_deps.bzl", "protobuf_deps")
protobuf_deps()
http_archive(
name = "com_github_bazelbuild_buildtools",
sha256 = "ae34c344514e08c23e90da0e2d6cb700fcd28e80c02e23e4d5715dddcb42f7b3",
strip_prefix = "buildtools-4.2.2",
urls = [
"https://github.com/bazelbuild/buildtools/archive/refs/tags/4.2.2.tar.gz",
],
)
BUILD.bazel
typically in the workspace root:
load("@com_github_bazelbuild_buildtools//buildifier:def.bzl", "buildifier")
buildifier(
name = "buildifier",
)
Invoke with
bazel run //:buildifier
Buildifier supports diagnostics output in machine-readable format (json), triggered by
--format=json
(only works in combination with --mode=check
). If used in combination with -v
,
the output json will be indented for better readability.
The output format is the following:
{
"success": false, // true if all files are formatted and generate no warnings, false otherwise
"files": [ // list of all files processed by buildifier
{
"filename": "file_1.bzl",
"formatted": true, // whether the file is correctly formatted
"valid": true, // whether the file is a valid Starlark file. Can only be false if formatted = false
"warnings": [ // a list of warnings
{
"start": {
"line": 1,
"column": 5
},
"end": {
"line": 1,
"column": 10
},
"category": "integer-division",
"actionable": true,
"message": "The \"/\" operator for integer division is deprecated in favor of \"//\".",
"url": "https://github.com/bazelbuild/buildtools/blob/master/WARNINGS.md#integer-division"
}
]
},
{
"filename": "file_2.bzl",
"formatted": false,
"valid": true,
"warnings": [],
"rewrites": { // technical information, a list of rewrites buildifier applies during reformatting
"editoctal": 1
}
},
{
"filename": "file_3.bzl",
"formatted": true,
"valid": true,
"warnings": []
},
{
"filename": "file_4.not_bzl",
"formatted": false,
"valid": false,
"warnings": []
}
]
}
When the --format
flag is provided, buildifier always returns 0
unless there are internal
failures or wrong input parameters, this means the output can be parsed as JSON, and its success
field should be used to determine whether the diagnostics result is positive.