awesome-copilot/skills/vcpkg/references/ci.md

vcpkg: CI/CD & DevOps

Reference for the vcpkg skill. Use this when a user asks about using vcpkg in CI/CD pipelines, configuring binary caching, setting up devcontainers, generating SBOMs, or automating dependency updates (GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, binary cache configuration, CI optimization).

Binary Caching

Configure binary caching to avoid rebuilding packages:

Azure Blob Storage:

set VCPKG_BINARY_SOURCES=clear;x-azblob,https://myaccount.blob.core.windows.net/vcpkg-cache,<sas-token>,readwrite

GitHub Packages (NuGet):

set VCPKG_BINARY_SOURCES=clear;nuget,https://nuget.pkg.github.com/your-org/index.json,readwrite

Local filesystem:

set VCPKG_BINARY_SOURCES=clear;files,C:/vcpkg-cache,readwrite

Sharing between CI and local dev: Use the same remote cache (Azure Blob or NuGet feed) in both environments. CI writes (readwrite), developers read (read):

# CI (writes cache)
set VCPKG_BINARY_SOURCES=clear;x-azblob,https://myaccount.blob.core.windows.net/cache,<sas>,readwrite

# Developer (reads cache)
set VCPKG_BINARY_SOURCES=clear;x-azblob,https://myaccount.blob.core.windows.net/cache,<sas>,read

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Generating an SBOM (Software Bill of Materials)

vcpkg can generate an SBOM in SPDX format:

vcpkg install --x-write-nuget-packages-config=packages.config

For manifest mode, after install check vcpkg_installed/<triplet>/share/ for SPDX files. Each installed port generates an SPDX JSON document at:

vcpkg_installed/<triplet>/share/<port>/sbom.spdx.json

To aggregate: use vcpkg x-package-info --x-installed to list all packages and versions, then feed into your SBOM toolchain (e.g., Microsoft SBOM Tool, CycloneDX).

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Automating Dependency Updates

Option 1: Dependabot (GitHub) — configure .github/dependabot.yml:

version: 2
updates:
  - package-ecosystem: "vcpkg"
    directory: "/"
    schedule:
      interval: "weekly"

Option 2: Script-based — create a scheduled CI job that:

1. Updates the vcpkg clone (git pull)
2. Gets the new baseline (git rev-parse HEAD)
3. Updates builtin-baseline in vcpkg.json
4. Runs vcpkg install to verify
5. Opens a PR with the changes

---

Multi-Triplet CI Testing

Test across multiple triplets in a CI matrix:

# GitHub Actions example
strategy:
  matrix:
    triplet: [x64-windows, x64-linux, x64-osx]
    include:
      - triplet: x64-windows
        os: windows-latest
      - triplet: x64-linux
        os: ubuntu-latest
      - triplet: x64-osx
        os: macos-latest

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v4
  - name: Install vcpkg
    run: |
      git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg
      ./vcpkg/bootstrap-vcpkg.sh
  - name: Install dependencies
    run: vcpkg install --triplet ${{ matrix.triplet }}