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xmake-io/xmake

🔥 A cross-platform build utility based on Lua
Source code at GitHub https://xmake.io
xmake-io/xmake.json
{
  "createdAt": "2015-04-23T03:37:31Z",
  "defaultBranch": "dev",
  "description": "🔥 A cross-platform build utility based on Lua",
  "fullName": "xmake-io/xmake",
  "homepage": "https://xmake.io",
  "language": "Lua",
  "name": "xmake",
  "pushedAt": "2025-11-26T01:53:25Z",
  "stargazersCount": 11502,
  "topics": [
    "build",
    "build-tool",
    "c",
    "c-plus-plus",
    "cmake",
    "cross-toolchains",
    "linux",
    "lua",
    "makefile",
    "objective-c",
    "package-manager",
    "tbox",
    "visual-studio",
    "wdk",
    "xmake"
  ],
  "updatedAt": "2025-11-25T14:58:50Z",
  "url": "https://github.com/xmake-io/xmake"
}

xmake

A cross-platform build utility based on Lua
Modern C/C++ build tool: Simple, Fast, Powerful dependency package integration

Support this project

Section titled “Support this project”

Support this project by becoming a sponsor. Your logo will show up here with a link to your website. 🙏

Technical support

Section titled “Technical support”

You can also consider sponsoring us to get extra technical support services via the Github sponsor program. If you do, you can get access to the xmake-io/technical-support repository, which has the following benefits:

  • Handling Issues with higher priority
  • One-to-one technical consulting service
  • Review your xmake.lua and provide suggestions for improvement

Introduction ([中文]!(/README_zh.md))

Section titled “Introduction ([中文]!(/README_zh.md))”

What is Xmake?

  1. Xmake is a cross-platform build utility based on the Lua scripting language.
  2. Xmake is very lightweight and has no dependencies outside of the standard library.
  3. Uses the xmake.lua file to maintain project builds with a simple and readable syntax.

Xmake can be used to directly build source code (like with Make or Ninja), or it can generate project source files like CMake or Meson. It also has a built-in package management system to help users integrate C/C++ dependencies.

Xmake = Build backend + Project Generator + Package Manager + [Remote|Distributed] Build + Cache

Although less precise, one can still understand Xmake in the following way:

Xmake ≈ Make/Ninja + CMake/Meson + Vcpkg/Conan + distcc + ccache/sccache

If you want to know more, please refer to the Documentation, GitHub or Gitee. You are also welcome to join our community.

The official Xmake repository can be found at xmake-io/xmake-repo.

Installation

Section titled “Installation”

With cURL

Section titled “With cURL”
Terminal window
curl -fsSL https://xmake.io/shget.text | bash

With Wget

Section titled “With Wget”
Terminal window
wget https://xmake.io/shget.text -O - | bash

With PowerShell

Section titled “With PowerShell”
Terminal window
irm https://xmake.io/psget.text | iex

Other installation methods

Section titled “Other installation methods”

If you don’t want to use the above scripts to install Xmake, visit the Installation Guide for other installation methods (building from source, package managers, etc.).

Simple Project Description

Section titled “Simple Project Description”
target("console")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")

Creates a new target console of kind binary, and adds all the files ending in .c in the src directory.

Package dependencies

Section titled “Package dependencies”
add_requires("tbox 1.6.*", "zlib", "libpng ~1.6")

Adds a requirement of tbox v1.6, zlib (any version), and libpng v1.6.

The official xmake package repository exists at: xmake-repo

Command line interface reference

Section titled “Command line interface reference”

The below assumes you are currently in the project’s root directory.

Build a project

Section titled “Build a project”
Terminal window
$ xmake

Run target

Section titled “Run target”
Terminal window
$ xmake run console

Debug target

Section titled “Debug target”
Terminal window
$ xmake run -d console

Run test

Section titled “Run test”
Terminal window
$ xmake test

Configure platform

Section titled “Configure platform”
Terminal window
$ xmake f -p [windows|linux|macosx|android|iphoneos ..] -a [x86|arm64 ..] -m [debug|release]
$ xmake
Section titled “Menu configuration”
Terminal window
$ xmake f --menu

Supported platforms

Section titled “Supported platforms”
  • Windows (x86, x64, arm, arm64, arm64ec)
  • macOS (i386, x86_64, arm64)
  • Linux (i386, x86_64, arm, arm64, riscv, mips, 390x, sh4 …)
  • FreeBSD (i386, x86_64)
  • NetBSD (i386, x86_64)
  • OpenBSD (i386, x86_64)
  • DragonflyBSD (i386, x86_64)
  • Solaris (i386, x86_64)
  • Android (x86, x86_64, armeabi, armeabi-v7a, arm64-v8a)
  • iOS (armv7, armv7s, arm64, i386, x86_64)
  • WatchOS (armv7k, i386)
  • AppleTVOS (armv7, arm64, i386, x86_64)
  • AppleXROS (arm64, x86_64)
  • MSYS (i386, x86_64)
  • MinGW (i386, x86_64, arm, arm64)
  • Cygwin (i386, x86_64)
  • Wasm (wasm32, wasm64)
  • Haiku (i386, x86_64)
  • Harmony (x86_64, armeabi-v7a, arm64-v8a)
  • Cross (cross-toolchains ..)

Supported toolchains

Section titled “Supported toolchains”
Terminal window
$ xmake show -l toolchains
xcode         Xcode IDE
msvc          Microsoft Visual C/C++ Compiler
clang-cl      LLVM Clang C/C++ Compiler compatible with msvc
yasm          The Yasm Modular Assembler
clang         A C language family frontend for LLVM
go            Go Programming Language Compiler
dlang         D Programming Language Compiler (Auto)
dmd           D Programming Language Compiler
ldc           The LLVM-based D Compiler
gdc           The GNU D Compiler (GDC)
gfortran      GNU Fortran Programming Language Compiler
zig           Zig Programming Language Compiler
sdcc          Small Device C Compiler
cuda          CUDA Toolkit (nvcc, nvc, nvc++, nvfortran)
ndk           Android NDK
rust          Rust Programming Language Compiler
swift         Swift Programming Language Compiler
llvm          A collection of modular and reusable compiler and toolchain technologies
cross         Common cross compilation toolchain
nasm          NASM Assembler
gcc           GNU Compiler Collection
mingw         Minimalist GNU for Windows
gnu-rm        GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain
envs          Environment variables toolchain
fasm          Flat Assembler
tinycc        Tiny C Compiler
emcc          A toolchain for compiling to asm.js and WebAssembly
icc           Intel C/C++ Compiler
ifort         Intel Fortran Compiler
ifx           Intel LLVM Fortran Compiler
muslcc        The musl-based cross-compilation toolchain
fpc           Free Pascal Programming Language Compiler
wasi          WASI-enabled WebAssembly C/C++ toolchain
nim           Nim Programming Language Compiler
circle        A new C++20 compiler
armcc         ARM Compiler Version 5 of Keil MDK
armclang      ARM Compiler Version 6 of Keil MDK
c51           Keil development tools for the 8051 Microcontroller Architecture
icx           Intel LLVM C/C++ Compiler
dpcpp         Intel LLVM C++ Compiler for data parallel programming model based on Khronos SYCL
masm32        The MASM32 SDK
iverilog      Icarus Verilog
verilator     Verilator open-source SystemVerilog simulator and lint system
cosmocc       build-once run-anywhere
hdk           Harmony SDK
ti-c2000      TI-CGT C2000 compiler
ti-c6000      TI-CGT C6000 compiler
iararm        IAR ARM C/C++ Compiler
kotlin-native Kotlin Native Programming Language Compiler

Supported languages

Section titled “Supported languages”
  • C and C++
  • Objective-C and Objective-C++
  • Swift
  • Assembly
  • Golang
  • Rust
  • Dlang
  • Fortran
  • Cuda
  • Zig
  • Vala
  • Pascal
  • Nim
  • Verilog
  • FASM
  • NASM
  • YASM
  • MASM32
  • Cppfront
  • Kotlin

Features

Section titled “Features”

Xmake exhibits:

  • Simple yet flexible configuration grammar.
  • Quick, dependency-free installation.
  • Easy compilation for most all supported platforms.
  • Supports cross-compilation with intelligent analysis of cross toolchain information.
  • Extremely fast parallel compilation support.
  • Supports C++ modules (new in C++20).
  • Supports cross-platform C/C++ dependencies with built-in package manager.
  • Multi-language compilation support including mixed-language projects.
  • Rich plug-in support with various project generators (ex. Visual Studio/Makefiles/CMake/compile_commands.json)
  • REPL interactive execution support
  • Incremental compilation support with automatic analysis of header files
  • Built-in toolchain management
  • A large number of expansion modules
  • Remote compilation support
  • Distributed compilation support
  • Local and remote build cache support

Supported Project Types

Section titled “Supported Project Types”

Xmake supports the below types of projects:

  • Static libraries
  • Shared libraries
  • Console/CLI applications
  • CUDA programs
  • Qt applications
  • WDK drivers (umdf/kmdf/wdm)
  • WinSDK applications
  • MFC applications
  • Darwin applications (with metal support)
  • Frameworks and bundles (in Darwin)
  • SWIG modules (Lua, Python, …)
  • LuaRocks modules
  • Protobuf programs
  • Lex/Yacc programs
  • Linux kernel modules

Package management

Section titled “Package management”

Download and build

Section titled “Download and build”

Xmake can automatically fetch and install dependencies!

Supported package repositories

Section titled “Supported package repositories”
  • Official package repository xmake-repo (tbox >1.6.1)
  • Official package manager Xrepo
  • User-built repositories
  • Conan (conan::openssl/1.1.1g)
  • Conda (conda::libpng 1.3.67)
  • Vcpkg (vcpkg:ffmpeg)
  • Homebrew/Linuxbrew (brew::pcre2/libpcre2-8)
  • Pacman on archlinux/msys2 (pacman::libcurl)
  • Apt on ubuntu/debian (apt::zlib1g-dev)
  • Clib (clib::clibs/bytes@0.0.4)
  • Dub (dub::log 0.4.3)
  • Portage on Gentoo/Linux (portage::libhandy)
  • Nimble for nimlang (nimble::zip >1.3)
  • Cargo for rust (cargo::base64 0.13.0)
  • Zypper on openSUSE (zypper::libsfml2 2.5)

Package management features

Section titled “Package management features”
  • The official repository provides nearly 500+ packages with simple compilation on all supported platforms
  • Full platform package support, support for cross-compiled dependent packages
  • Support package virtual environment using xrepo env shell
  • Precompiled package acceleration for Windows (NT)
  • Support self-built package repositories and private repository deployment
  • Third-party package repository support for repositories such as: vcpkg, conan, conda, etc.
  • Supports automatic pulling of remote toolchains
  • Supports dependency version locking

Processing architecture

Section titled “Processing architecture”

Below is a diagram showing roughly the architecture of Xmake, and thus how it functions.

Distributed Compilation

Section titled “Distributed Compilation”
  • Cross-platform support.
  • Support for MSVC, Clang, GCC and other cross-compilation toolchains.
  • Support for building for Android, Linux, Windows NT, and Darwin hosts.
  • No dependencies other than the compilation toolchain.
  • Support for build server load balancing scheduling.
  • Support for real time compressed transfer of large files (lz4).
  • Almost zero configuration cost, no shared filesystem required, for convenience and security.

For more details see: Distributed Compilation

Remote Compilation

Section titled “Remote Compilation”

For more details see: Remote Compilation

Local/Remote Build Cache

Section titled “Local/Remote Build Cache”

For more details see: Build Cache Acceleration

Benchmark

Section titled “Benchmark”

Xmake’s speed on is par with Ninja! The test project: xmake-core

Multi-task parallel compilation

Section titled “Multi-task parallel compilation”
buildsystemTermux (8core/-j12)buildsystemMacOS (8core/-j12)
xmake24.890sxmake12.264s
ninja25.682sninja11.327s
cmake(gen+make)5.416s+28.473scmake(gen+make)1.203s+14.030s
cmake(gen+ninja)4.458s+24.842scmake(gen+ninja)0.988s+11.644s

Single task compilation

Section titled “Single task compilation”
buildsystemTermux (-j1)buildsystemMacOS (-j1)
xmake1m57.707sxmake39.937s
ninja1m52.845sninja38.995s
cmake(gen+make)5.416s+2m10.539scmake(gen+make)1.203s+41.737s
cmake(gen+ninja)4.458s+1m54.868scmake(gen+ninja)0.988s+38.022s

More Examples

Section titled “More Examples”

Debug and release profiles

Section titled “Debug and release profiles”
add_rules("mode.debug", "mode.release")


target("console")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")
    if is_mode("debug") then
        add_defines("DEBUG")
    end

Custom scripts

Section titled “Custom scripts”
target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")
    after_build(function (target)
        print("hello: %s", target:name())
        os.exec("echo %s", target:targetfile())
    end)

Automatic integration of dependent packages

Section titled “Automatic integration of dependent packages”

Download and use packages in xmake-repo or third-party repositories:

add_requires("tbox >1.6.1", "libuv master", "vcpkg::ffmpeg", "brew::pcre2/libpcre2-8")
add_requires("conan::openssl/1.1.1g", {alias = "openssl", optional = true, debug = true})
target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")
    add_packages("tbox", "libuv", "vcpkg::ffmpeg", "brew::pcre2/libpcre2-8", "openssl")

In addition, we can also use the xrepo command to quickly install dependencies.

Qt QuickApp Program

Section titled “Qt QuickApp Program”
target("test")
    add_rules("qt.quickapp")
    add_files("src/*.cpp")
    add_files("src/qml.qrc")

Cuda Program

Section titled “Cuda Program”
target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.cu")
    add_cugencodes("native")
    add_cugencodes("compute_35")

WDK/UMDF Driver Program

Section titled “WDK/UMDF Driver Program”
target("echo")
    add_rules("wdk.driver", "wdk.env.umdf")
    add_files("driver/*.c")
    add_files("driver/*.inx")
    add_includedirs("exe")


target("app")
    add_rules("wdk.binary", "wdk.env.umdf")
    add_files("exe/*.cpp")

For more WDK driver examples (UMDF/KMDF/WDM), please visit WDK Program Examples

Darwin Applications

Section titled “Darwin Applications”
target("test")
    add_rules("xcode.application")
    add_files("src/*.m", "src/**.storyboard", "src/*.xcassets")
    add_files("src/Info.plist")

Framework and Bundle Program (Darwin)

Section titled “Framework and Bundle Program (Darwin)”
target("test")
    add_rules("xcode.framework") -- or xcode.bundle
    add_files("src/*.m")
    add_files("src/Info.plist")

OpenMP Program

Section titled “OpenMP Program”
add_requires("libomp", {optional = true})
target("loop")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.cpp")
    add_rules("c++.openmp")
    add_packages("libomp")

Zig Program

Section titled “Zig Program”
target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/main.zig")

Automatically fetch remote toolchain

Section titled “Automatically fetch remote toolchain”

fetch a special version of LLVM

Section titled “fetch a special version of LLVM”

Require the Clang version packaged with LLM-10 to compile a project.

add_requires("llvm 10.x", {alias = "llvm-10"})
target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")
    set_toolchains("llvm@llvm-10")

Fetch a cross-compilation toolchain

Section titled “Fetch a cross-compilation toolchain”

We can also pull a specified cross-compilation toolchain in to compile the project.

add_requires("muslcc")
target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")
    set_toolchains("@muslcc")

Fetch toolchain and packages

Section titled “Fetch toolchain and packages”

We can also use the specified muslcc cross-compilation toolchain to compile and integrate all dependent packages.

add_requires("muslcc")
add_requires("zlib", "libogg", {system = false})


set_toolchains("@muslcc")


target("test")
    set_kind("binary")
    add_files("src/*.c")
    add_packages("zlib", "libogg")

Plugins

Section titled “Plugins”

Generate IDE project file plugin（makefile, vs2002 - vs2026 .. ）

Section titled “Generate IDE project file plugin（makefile, vs2002 - vs2026 .. ）”
Terminal window
$ xmake project -k vsxmake -m "debug,release" # New vsproj generator (Recommended)
$ xmake project -k vs -m "debug,release"
$ xmake project -k cmake
$ xmake project -k ninja
$ xmake project -k compile_commands

Run a custom lua script plugin

Section titled “Run a custom lua script plugin”
Terminal window
$ xmake l ./test.lua
$ xmake l -c "print('hello xmake!')"
$ xmake l lib.detect.find_tool gcc
$ xmake l
> print("hello xmake!")
> {1, 2, 3}
< {
    1,
    2,
    3
  }

To see a list of builtin plugins, please visit Builtin plugins.

Please download and install other plugins from the plugins repository xmake-plugins.

IDE/Editor Integration

Section titled “IDE/Editor Integration”

Xmake Gradle Plugin (JNI)

Section titled “Xmake Gradle Plugin (JNI)”

We can use the xmake-gradle plugin to compile JNI libraries via gradle.

plugins {
  id 'org.tboox.gradle-xmake-plugin' version '1.1.5'
}


android {
    externalNativeBuild {
        xmake {
            path "jni/xmake.lua"
        }
    }
}

The xmakeBuild task will be injected into the assemble task automatically if the gradle-xmake-plugin has been applied.

Terminal window
$ ./gradlew app:assembleDebug
> Task :nativelib:xmakeConfigureForArm64
> Task :nativelib:xmakeBuildForArm64
>> xmake build
[ 50%] !: cache compiling.debug nativelib.cc
[ 75%] !: linking.debug libnativelib.so
[100%] !: build ok!
>> install artifacts to /Users/ruki/projects/personal/xmake-gradle/nativelib/libs/arm64-v8a
> Task :nativelib:xmakeConfigureForArmv7
> Task :nativelib:xmakeBuildForArmv7
>> xmake build
[ 50%] !: cache compiling.debug nativelib.cc
[ 75%] !: linking.debug libnativelib.so
[100%] !: build ok!
>> install artifacts to /Users/ruki/projects/personal/xmake-gradle/nativelib/libs/armeabi-v7a
> Task :nativelib:preBuild
> Task :nativelib:assemble
> Task :app:assembleDebug

CI Integration

Section titled “CI Integration”

GitHub Action

Section titled “GitHub Action”

The github-action-setup-xmake plugin for GitHub Actions can allow you to use Xmake with minimal efforts if you use GitHub Actions for your CI pipeline.

uses: xmake-io/github-action-setup-xmake@v1
with:
  xmake-version: latest

Who is using Xmake?

Section titled “Who is using Xmake?”

The list of people and projects who are using Xmake is available here.

If you are using Xmake, you are welcome to submit your information to the above list through a PR, so that other users and the developers can gauge interest. This also lets users use xmake more confidently and gives us motivation to continue to maintain it.

This will help the Xmake project and it’s community grow stronger and expand!

Contacts

Section titled “Contacts”

Thanks

Section titled “Thanks”

This project exists thanks to all the people who have [contributed]!(CONTRIBUTING.md):

  • TitanSnow: Provide the xmake logo and install scripts
  • uael: Provide the semantic versioning library sv
  • OpportunityLiu: Improve cuda, tests and ci
  • xq144: Improve xrepo env shell, and contribute a lot of packages to the xmake-repo repository.
  • star-hengxing: Contribute a lot of packages to the xmake-repo repository.
  • Arthapz: Contribute new C++ Modules implementation.
  • SirLynix: Contributed many packages and let more people know about xmake.
  • enderger: Helped smooth out the edges on the English translation of the README

Powered by

Section titled “Powered by”

JetBrains logo.