NativeLink is a Nix-powered, open source, high-performance build cache and remote execution server, compatible with Bazel, Soong, Pants, Buck2, Reclient, and other RE-compatible build systems. It offers drastically faster builds, reduced test flakiness, and support for specialized hardware.
What's NativeLink?
NativeLink is an efficient, high-performance build cache and remote execution system that accelerates software compilation and testing while reducing infrastructure costs. It optimizes build processes for projects of all sizes by intelligently caching build artifacts and distributing tasks across multiple machines.
NativeLink is trusted in production environments to reduce costs and developer iteration times--handling over billions of requests per month for its customers, including large corporations such as Samsung.
๐ Key Features
- Advanced Build Cache:
- Efficient Remote Execution:
NativeLink seamlessly integrates with build tools that use the Remote Execution protocol, such as Bazel, Buck2, Goma, and Siso. CMake projects work too via recc. See Build CMake projects with NativeLink. It supports Unix-based operating systems and Windows, ensuring broad compatibility across different development environments.
๐ Quickstart
To start, you can deploy NativeLink as a Docker image (as shown below). The setups below are production-grade installations. See the contribution docs for instructions on how to build from source with Bazel, Cargo, and Nix.
You can find a few example deployments in the Docs.
๐ฆ Prebuilt images
Fast to spin up, but currently limited to x8664 systems. See the container registry for all image tags and the contribution docs for how to build the images yourself.
Linux x86_64
curl -O \
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TraceMachina/nativelink/v1.4.0/nativelink-config/examples/basic_cas.json5
See https://github.com/TraceMachina/nativelink/pkgs/container/nativelink
to find the latest tag
docker run \
-v $(pwd)/basic_cas.json5:/config \
-p 50051:50051 \
ghcr.io/tracemachina/nativelink:v1.4.0 \
configWindows x86_64
# Download the configuration file
Invoke-WebRequest
-Uri "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TraceMachina/nativelink/v1.4.0/nativelink-config/examples/basic_cas.json5"
-OutFile "basic_cas.json5"
Run the Docker container
Note: Adjust the path if the script is not run from the directory containing basic_cas.json
docker run
-v ${PWD}/basic_cas.json5:/config
-p 50051:50051
ghcr.io/tracemachina/nativelink:v1.4.0
configโ๏ธ Raw executable with Nix
Slower, since it's built from source, but more flexible and supports MacOS. Doesn't support native Windows, but works in WSL2.
Make sure your Nix version is recent and supports flakes. For instance, install it via the next-gen nix installer.
[!CAUTION]
Executables built for MacOS are dynamically linked against libraries from Nix
and won't work on systems that don't have these libraries present.
[!TIP]
Common setup gotchas for Nix on macOS / Linux:
* Active shell environment: If the installer finishes but your shell doesn't recognize nix commands, you need to either restart your terminal session or source the daemon profile manually:
>> . /nix/var/nix/profiles/default/etc/profile.d/nix-daemon.sh
* Enabling experimental features: If you used the standard Nix installer and get an error sayingexperimental Nix feature 'nix-command' is disabled, enable them by creating or editing~/.config/nix/nix.conf:
>> experimental-features = nix-command flakes
* Disk Space: Unpacking and building compilers and dependencies requires significant storage. Make sure you have at least 15โ20 GB of free space on your system volume before running setup commands.
Linux, MacOS, WSL2
curl -O \
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TraceMachina/nativelink/main/nativelink-config/examples/basic_cas.json5
nix run github:TraceMachina/nativelink ./basic_cas.json5
See the contribution docs for further information.
๐ค Contributing
Visit our Contributing guide to learn how to contribute to NativeLink. We welcome contributions from developers of all skill levels and backgrounds!
๐ Stats
๐ License
Copyright 2020โ2025 Trace Machina, Inc.
Licensed under the Functional Source License, Version 1.1, Apache 2.0 Future License. SPDX identifier: FSL-1.1-Apache-2.0.
After the second anniversary of the date this version was made available, you may use this software under the Apache License, Version 2.0.
