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Self-Hosted Build Agent Requirements

Requirements, toolchain dependencies, and operating system configuration for self-hosted CI build agents.

Agent Pool & Demand Mapping

All build agents must be registered in the Default pool and expose the required Agent.OS demand:

flowchart LR
    A["Azure DevOps Agent Pool: Default"]
    A --> D["Darwin Agent (Agent.OS == Darwin)"]
    A --> L["Linux Agent (Agent.OS == Linux)"]
    A --> W["Windows Agent (Agent.OS == Windows_NT)"]

1. Darwin (macOS) Agents

  • Demand: Agent.OS -equals Darwin
  • Operating System: macOS Sonoma (14+) on Apple Silicon (arm64) or Intel (x64).
  • Toolchain: Xcode 15+ / Command Line Tools (AppleClang 15+). Presets and build files automatically resolve direct compiler binaries, coexisting seamlessly with any xcode-select setting.
  • Utilities:
  • CMake 3.29+
  • Ninja 1.11+
  • Python 3.10+
  • Doxygen (for XML generation)
  • MkDocs (pip install -r docs/requirements.txt)
  • Note: No external Homebrew LLVM installation required.

2. Linux Agents

  • Demand: Agent.OS -equals Linux
  • Operating System: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 9+), Rocky Linux 9+, or Ubuntu 22.04+ on x64 or arm64.
  • Toolchain:
  • GCC 13+ (/usr/bin/gcc, /usr/bin/g++)
  • Clang 17+ (/usr/bin/clang, /usr/bin/clang++)
  • Utilities:
  • CMake 3.29+
  • Ninja 1.11+
  • Python 3.10+
  • gcovr (for test coverage reports)
  • Doxygen
  • MkDocs (pip install -r docs/requirements.txt)
  • Note: Documentation publication (PublishDocs) executes on Linux or macOS agents, skipping gracefully if MkDocs is not installed.

3. Windows Agents

  • Demand: Agent.OS -equals Windows_NT
  • Operating System: Windows 11 or Windows Server 2022 (x64 or arm64).
  • Toolchain: Visual Studio 2022 (MSVC v143+), Windows 11 SDK.
  • Prerequisites: Execute scripts/prep_windows_machine.ps1 as Administrator to configure long path support: 
    Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem" -Name "LongPathsEnabled" -Value 1
git config --system core.longpaths true
  • Environment Helper: For local command-line shells, initialize MSVC tools via scripts/init_msvc_env.ps1 or scripts/init_msvc_env.bat.
  • CI/CD Pipelines: Pipeline stages and trigger matrix
  • CMake Presets: Presets executed on each agent
  • release guidelines: Package and documentation publication flow