Recordingdepends

Recordingdepends is a concept used in software build and workflow systems to capture and record dependencies that arise at runtime or during execution. It refers to the process of generating a dependency manifest or graph by observing which files, resources, or environment factors a program reads or relies on while it runs. The goal is to make incremental builds and reproducible workflows more accurate by including dynamic dependencies that static analysis might miss.

How it works

When recordingdepends is enabled, a tool may instrument or monitor a program’s execution to log file accesses, reads from configuration sources, environment variable reads, and other side effects. The collected information is then emitted as a dependency file or graph, mapping targets (such as executables or libraries) to their runtime inputs. Build systems can use this data to decide which parts of the project must be rebuilt when inputs change.

Use cases

Recordingdepends helps with incremental builds in projects that rely on dynamically discovered resources, scripts, or data files. It also supports reproducible builds by explicitly listing all inputs required to produce an output, reducing cache misses and mismatches caused by implicit dependencies.

Limitations

The approach can introduce runtime overhead during instrumentation, may not capture all dependencies in every scenario, and can produce non-deterministic results in parallel or multi-process environments.

See also

Depfile, dynamic dependency tracking, incremental builds, reproducible builds, Make, Bazel.