Tulsi - an Xcode Project Generator For Bazel

tulsi - /ˈto͝olsē/ A kind of basil that is venerated by Hindus as a sacred plant.

Building and installing

1. Check .bazelrc to see if the Xcode version used by Tulsi is installed locally. If it isn't, feel free to remove the --xcode_version flag or modify it as you wish, but note that Tulsi may not build correctly with different versions of Xcode.
2. Run build_and_run.sh. This will install Tulsi.app inside ~/Applications.

Notes

Tulsi-generated Xcode projects use Bazel to build, not Xcode via xcbuild. This means that many common components of an Xcode project are handled differently than you may be used to. Notable differences:

• BUILD files are the source of truth; most changes made to your Xcode project won't affect the build.
  • Adding new sources to the Xcode project won't include them in your app; they must be added to BUILD files.
  • Changes made to your BUILD files, such as adding new library dependencies, are incorporated automatically when building your generated project. The only time you need to re-run Tulsi is if you want to add additional build targets or have new source files show up in Xcode for editing.
  • The Info.plist file is governed entirely by BUILD rules in Bazel and is not displayed in the Xcode UI.
  • Changes to compilation flags (i.e. -DHELLO) should be made in the BUILD files in order to affect the build; changes made to compilation settings in the Xcode UI will only affect indexing. You may want to regenerate your project using Tulsi after modifying compilation flags.
• Tulsi will set some Tulsi-specific flags for bazel invocations, some of which may affect Bazel caching. In order to maximize cache re-use when building from the command line, try using the user_build.py script which is located in the generated xcodeproj at <xcodeproj>/.tulsi/Scripts/user_build.py.

Tulsi project and config settings

Tulsi projects contain a few settings which control various behaviors during project generation and builds.

• Bazel build flags, customizable per compilation mode (dbg and opt)
• Bazel build startup flags, also customizable per compilation mode
• Generation platform configuration: Target platform and arch used during project generation.
  • Can change from targeting iOS sim to iOS device or from iOS to macOS. Setting this improperly shouldn't break your project although it may potentially worsen generation and build performance.
• Generation compilation mode: Bazel compilation mode (dbg or opt, no fastbuild) used during project generation.
  • Defaults to dbg, swap to opt if you normally build Release builds in Xcode (i.e. profiling your app). Setting this improperly shouldn't break your project although it may potentially worsen generation and build performance.
• Prioritize Swift: set this to inform Tulsi that it should use Swift-specific flags during project generation.
  • Defaults to No, swap to Yes if your project contains Swift (even in its dependencies). Setting this improperly shouldn't break your project although it may potentially worsen generation and build performance.