Creating a New Workspace

This section describes how to create a new workspace maintaining programming contest problems using rules_contest.

What is a workspace?

A workspace is a concept of Bazel. A workspace refers to a set of repositories, namely the main repository which is the primary directory tree where you maintain source code for your project, and external repositories that are imported directly or indirectly by the main repository. The root directory of a repository contains a text file named MODULE.bazel (or alternatively, REPO.bazel, WORKSPACE.bazel, WORKSPACE) to declare that it’s a Bazel repository.

Creating a workspace using the template (recommended)

We provide a Git repository containing a template workspace on GitHub. Click the “Use this template” button to create a new repository using the template. Use Git to checkout the repository to the local machine.

Standard workspace layout

Since Bazel rules provided by rules_contest make no assumption about file locations, you can organize your workspace files in any way you like. That said, if your workspace is for maintaining problems for a programming contest event, it is recommended to place workspace files in the following standard workspace layout. The template workspace has this layout.

Workspace root directory
- Problem 1 directory
  - Judge directory
  - Solution A directory
  - Solution B directory
  - …
- Problem 2 directory
  - Judge directory
  - Solution A directory
  - Solution B directory
- …

Settings

MODULE.bazel

MODULE.bazel file in the workspace directory should include the following external dependency to use rules_contest.

bazel_dep(name = "rules_contest", version = "0.9.3")

.gitignore (optional)

Bazel creates symbolic links named bazel-* in the workspace directory. It is recommended to add them to the .gitignore file so that you and your collaborators do not accidentally commit those them.

/bazel-*

.bazelrc (optional)

You can place .bazelrc file in the workspace directory to override Bazel’s default configurations. Some configurations are recommended.

# Enable optimization by default.
# Without this setting, C++ programs are much slower.
build -c opt

Configuring continuous integration

It is likely that you want to set up a continuous integration to build and test your workspace periodically or on every commit. See the template repository for an example configuration of GitHub Actions.