Migrating Airbnb’s JVM Monorepo to Bazel

Summary

The article outlines Airbnb's extensive migration of its JVM monorepo from Gradle to Bazel, detailing the motivations behind the switch, such as improved build speed, reliability, and a unified build infrastructure. It discusses the challenges faced during the migration, including the need for automated build file generation and handling multiple versions of third-party libraries. The authors highlight the significant improvements in build times and developer productivity achieved through the migration process, emphasizing the importance of collaboration with pilot teams and the lessons learned throughout the transition.

Key Learnings

• 1Bazel's remote execution capabilities significantly enhance build performance compared to Gradle, especially for large codebases.
• 2Maintaining co-existing build systems during migration can lead to increased complexity, necessitating automated solutions for build file generation.
• 3Identifying and partnering with pilot teams early in the migration process can provide valuable insights and advocacy for the new system.
• 4Granularity in build configurations can improve performance but may complicate the migration process and increase maintenance overhead.
• 5Ensuring compatibility between Gradle and Bazel-built artifacts is crucial for a smooth transition and minimizing runtime issues.

Who Should Read This

Senior Build Engineers with experience in large-scale build systems looking to optimize CI/CD workflows.

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