Bazel is complex and does a lot of different things over the course of a build, some of which can have an impact on build performance. This page attempts to map some of these Bazel concepts to their implications on build performance. While not extensive, we have included some examples of how to detect build performance issues through extracting metrics and what you can do to fix them. With this, we hope you can apply these concepts when investigating build performance regressions.
Clean vs Incremental builds
A clean build is one that builds everything from scratch, while an incremental build reuses some already completed work.
We suggest looking at clean and incremental builds separately, especially when you are collecting / aggregating metrics that are dependent on the state of Bazel’s caches (for example build request size metrics ). They also represent two different user experiences. As compared to starting a clean build from scratch (which takes longer due to a cold cache), incremental builds happen far more frequently as developers iterate on code (typically faster since the cache is usually already warm).
You can use the CumulativeMetrics.num_analyses
field in the BEP to classify
builds. If num_analyses <= 1
, it is a clean build; otherwise, we can broadly
categorize it to likely be an incremental build - the user could have switched
to different flags or different targets causing an effectively clean build. Any
more rigorous definition of incrementality will likely have to come in the form
of a heuristic, for example looking at the number of packages loaded
(PackageMetrics.packages_loaded
).
Deterministic build metrics as a proxy for build performance
Measuring build performance can be difficult due to the non-deterministic nature of certain metrics (for example Bazel’s CPU time or queue times on a remote cluster). As such, it can be useful to use deterministic metrics as a proxy for the amount of work done by Bazel, which in turn affects its performance.
The size of a build request can have a significant implication on build performance. A larger build could represent more work in analyzing and constructing the build graphs. Organic growth of builds comes naturally with development, as more dependencies are added/created, and thus grow in complexity and become more expensive to build.
We can slice this problem into the various build phases, and use the following metrics as proxy metrics for work done at each phase:
PackageMetrics.packages_loaded
: the number of packages successfully loaded. A regression here represents more work that needs to be done to read and parse each additional BUILD file in the loading phase.TargetMetrics.targets_configured
: representing the number of targets and aspects configured in the build. A regression represents more work in constructing and traversing the configured target graph.- This is often due to the addition of dependencies and having to construct the graph of their transitive closure.
- Use cquery to find where new dependencies might have been added.
ActionSummary.actions_created
: represents the actions created in the build, and a regression represents more work in constructing the action graph. Note that this also includes unused actions that might not have been executed.- Use aquery for debugging regressions;
we suggest starting with
--output=summary
before further drilling down with--skyframe_state
.
- Use aquery for debugging regressions;
we suggest starting with
ActionSummary.actions_executed
: the number of actions executed, a regression directly represents more work in executing these actions.- The BEP writes out the action statistics
ActionData
that shows the most executed action types. By default, it collects the top 20 action types, but you can pass in the--experimental_record_metrics_for_all_mnemonics
to collect this data for all action types that were executed. - This should help you to figure out what kind of actions were executed (additionally).
- The BEP writes out the action statistics
BuildGraphSummary.outputArtifactCount
: the number of artifacts created by the executed actions.- If the number of actions executed did not increase, then it is likely that a rule implementation was changed.
These metrics are all affected by the state of the local cache, hence you will want to ensure that the builds you extract these metrics from are clean builds.
We have noted that a regression in any of these metrics can be accompanied by regressions in wall time, cpu time and memory usage.
Usage of local resources
Bazel consumes a variety of resources on your local machine (both for analyzing the build graph and driving the execution, and for running local actions), this can affect the performance / availability of your machine in performing the build, and also other tasks.
Time spent
Perhaps the metrics most susceptible to noise (and can vary greatly from build
to build) is time; in particular - wall time, cpu time and system time. You can
use bazel-bench to get
a benchmark for these metrics, and with a sufficient number of --runs
, you can
increase the statistical significance of your measurement.
Wall time is the real world time elapsed.
- If only wall time regresses, we suggest collecting a JSON trace profile and looking for differences. Otherwise, it would likely be more efficient to investigate other regressed metrics as they could have affected the wall time.
CPU time is the time spent by the CPU executing user code.
- If the CPU time regresses across two project commits, we suggest collecting
a Starlark CPU profile. You should probably also use
--nobuild
to restrict the build to the analysis phase since that is where most of the CPU heavy work is done.
- If the CPU time regresses across two project commits, we suggest collecting
a Starlark CPU profile. You should probably also use
System time is the time spent by the CPU in the kernel.
- If system time regresses, it is mostly correlated with I/O when Bazel reads files from your file system.
System-wide load profiling
Using the
--experimental_collect_load_average_in_profiler
flag introduced in Bazel 6.0, the
JSON trace profiler collects the
system load average during the invocation.
Figure 1. Profile that includes system load average.
A high load during a Bazel invocation can be an indication that Bazel schedules
too many local actions in parallel for your machine. You might want to look into
adjusting
--local_cpu_resources
and --local_ram_resources
,
especially in container environments (at least until
#16512 is merged).
Monitoring Bazel memory usage
There are two main sources to get Bazel’s memory usage, Bazel info
and the
BEP.
bazel info used-heap-size-after-gc
: The amount of used memory in bytes after a call toSystem.gc()
.- Bazel bench provides benchmarks for this metric as well.
- Additionally, there are
peak-heap-size
,max-heap-size
,used-heap-size
andcommitted-heap-size
(see documentation), but are less relevant.
BEP’s
MemoryMetrics.peak_post_gc_heap_size
: Size of the peak JVM heap size in bytes post GC (requires setting--memory_profile
that attempts to force a full GC).
A regression in memory usage is usually a result of a regression in build request size metrics, which are often due to addition of dependencies or a change in the rule implementation.
To analyze Bazel’s memory footprint on a more granular level, we recommend using the built-in memory profiler for rules.
Memory profiling of persistent workers
While persistent workers can help to speed up builds
significantly (especially for interpreted languages) their memory footprint can
be problematic. Bazel collects metrics on its workers, in particular, the
WorkerMetrics.WorkerStats.worker_memory_in_kb
field tells how much memory
workers use (by mnemonic).
The JSON trace profiler also
collects persistent worker memory usage during the invocation by passing in the
--experimental_collect_system_network_usage
flag (new in Bazel 6.0).
Figure 2. Profile that includes workers memory usage.
Lowering the value of
--worker_max_instances
(default 4) might help to reduce
the amount of memory used by persistent workers. We are actively working on
making Bazel’s resource manager and scheduler smarter so that such fine tuning
will be required less often in the future.
Monitoring network traffic for remote builds
In remote execution, Bazel downloads artifacts that were built as a result of executing actions. As such, your network bandwidth can affect the performance of your build.
If you are using remote execution for your builds, you might want to consider
monitoring the network traffic during the invocation using the
NetworkMetrics.SystemNetworkStats
proto from the BEP
(requires passing --experimental_collect_system_network_usage
).
Furthermore, JSON trace profiles
allow you to view system-wide network usage throughout the course of the build
by passing the --experimental_collect_system_network_usage
flag (new in Bazel
6.0).
Figure 3. Profile that includes system-wide network usage.
A high but rather flat network usage when using remote execution might indicate
that network is the bottleneck in your build; if you are not using it already,
consider turning on Build without the Bytes by passing
--remote_download_minimal
.
This will speed up your builds by avoiding the download of unnecessary intermediate artifacts.
Another option is to configure a local disk cache to save on download bandwidth.