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Summary

The article explores the challenges faced in optimizing build performance for Quip and Slack Canvas, specifically addressing the lengthy build times that hindered development agility. By leveraging Bazel, a modern build tool, the authors detail how they restructured their build pipeline to utilize caching and parallelization effectively. The discussion emphasizes the importance of defining clear dependencies and ensuring that build units are hermetic and idempotent to maximize cache hit rates and minimize unnecessary work. The transition involved significant engineering efforts to separate concerns between backend and frontend code, ultimately leading to a more efficient and manageable build process.

Key Learnings

• 1Utilizing Bazel requires a well-defined dependency graph to leverage its caching and parallelization capabilities effectively.
• 2Caching can significantly improve build performance, but it necessitates careful consideration of function attributes like hermeticity and idempotency.
• 3Parallelization of build tasks can enhance speed, but the granularity of tasks must be optimized to balance between task size and count.
• 4Separation of concerns between application code and build orchestration is crucial to prevent unintended coupling that can degrade build performance.
• 5Testing and validating new build processes against existing outputs can ensure correctness and build confidence in the new system.

Who Should Read This

Senior Build Engineers implementing Bazel for complex software projects facing lengthy build times

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