Protobuf and gRPC rules for Bazel#
Bazel rules for building Protobuf and gRPC code and libraries from proto_library targets.
If you or your company find these rules useful, please consider supporting the time spent building and maintaining these rules ☕
Overview#
These rules provide a consistent set of
Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) and
gRPC Bazel rules for a wide range of supported languages, services and
tools. This aims to encompass all aspects of working with .proto
files, such as:
Generation of language specific source files with protoc
Creation of libraries from protoc source file outputs
Linting and checking for breaking changes with Buf
Producing documentation from your Protobuf definitions with protoc-gen-doc
Each supported language (shown as {lang}
below) is generally split into four rule types:
{lang}_proto_compile
: Provides generated files from the Protobuf protoc plugin for the language. For example, for C++ this provides the generated*.pb.cc
and*.pb.h
files.{lang}_proto_library
: Provides a language-specific library from the generated Protobufprotoc
plugin outputs, along with necessary dependencies. For example, for C++ this provides a Bazel nativecpp_library
created from the generated*.pb.cc
and*.pb.h
files, with the Protobuf library linked.{lang}_grpc_compile
: Provides generated files from both the Protobuf and gRPCprotoc
plugins for the language. For example, for C++ this provides the generated*.pb.cc
,*.grpc.pb.cc
,*.pb.h
and*.grpc.pb.h
files.{lang}_grpc_library
: Provides a language-specific library from the generated Protobuf and gRPCprotoc
plugins outputs, along with necessary dependencies. For example, for C++ this provides a Bazel nativecpp_library
created from the generated*.pb.cc
,*.grpc.pb.cc
,*.pb.h
and*.grpc.pb.h
files, with the Protobuf and gRPC libraries linked.
Some languages may have variations on these rules, such as when there are multiple gRPC or Protobuf
implementations. However, generally you’ll want to use the {lang}_{proto|grpc}_library
rules,
since these bundle up all the outputs into a library that can easily be used elsewhere in your Bazel
workspace. Alternatively, if you just want the generated source code files, you can use the
{lang}_{proto|grpc}_compile
rules instead.
If you just need compilation of .proto
files for a single language, you may
find your language specific Bazel rules have their own Protobuf or gRPC rules, which may be
preferrable in a single-language repo.
Installation#
Support for each language is provided by a separate module, which should be added to your
MODULE.bazel
file. Details for each language’s module installation and usage are provided in the
language specific documentation pages. For example, for Go support, you would add the following line:
bazel_dep(name = "rules_proto_grpc_go", version = "<version number here>")
Supported Languages and Tools#
Language |
Protobuf |
gRPC |
---|---|---|
C |
✔ |
✖ |
C++ |
✔ |
✔ |
Go |
✔ |
✔ |
Java |
✔ |
✔ |
Objective-C |
✔ |
✔ |
Python |
✔ |
✔ |
Buf Linting |
✔ |
Checks |
Buf Breaking Change Detection |
✔ |
Checks |
grpc-gateway |
✔ |
Produces source files for creating gRPC to JSON proxies |
protoc-gen-doc |
✔ |
Creates Markdown, JSON, HTML or DocBook documentation files from your |