TLDR Web Dev · ARTICLES & TUTORIALS

SPEEDING UP C++ BUILD TIMES

figma.com9 min read

Summary from the TLDR Web Dev newsletter

C++ build times at Figma were getting so long that it was reducing dev productivity. Figma was able to reduce build times by 50% by using libclang's Python bindings to identify and remove unnecessary header file inclusions, reducing the amount of code the compiler needs to process. It also used a tool to track and address build time regressions over time and “fwd.h” files to centralize forward declarations within code directories.