Bazel Aliases

Give names to Bazel targets, allowing VS Code variables to refer to their output, environment, and working directory.

Overview

This extension adds the concept of an "active" Bazel target; set it with Bazel > Set Active Target or by clicking this extension's status bar item. The active target can then be built with Bazel > Build Active Target. It can also be used in commands (including launch.json files) via bazel-aliases.active.{output,outputPath,envFile,workingDirectory}.

If you'd like to have more than one "alias", define bazel-aliases.aliases in settings.json like so:

{
  "bazel-aliases.aliases": {
    "main": "//:main",
    "test": "//:test"
  }
}

Now the status bar item can be hovered to override these aliases, and new commands bazel-aliases.{main,test}.{output,...} will be available.

Commands

For an alias active (the default alias), the following commands are defined:

• bazel-aliases.active.build builds the target.

• bazel-aliases.active.output builds the target and yields its absolute path.

• bazel-aliases.active.outputPath yields the target's absolute path without building it.

• bazel-aliases.active.envFile builds the target and yields the absolute path to a file which contains the execution environment.

• bazel-aliases.active.workingDirectory builds the target and yields the absolute path of the working directory it would run under with bazel run.

• bazel-aliases.active.update sets the target corresponding to that alias for the current user/workspace.

Example

This is especially useful with CodeLLDB; here is an example launch.json which debugs the target referenced by main as if by using bazel run:

{
  "type": "lldb",
  "name": "Launch main executable",
  "request": "launch",
  "program": "${command:bazel-aliases.main.outputPath}",
  "envFile": "${command:bazel-aliases.main.envFile}",
  "cwd": "${command:bazel-aliases.main.workingDirectory}"
}