CMake Experimental Features Guide

The following is a guide to CMake experimental features that are under development and not yet included in official documentation. See documentation on CMake Development for more information.

Features are gated behind CMAKE_EXPERIMENTAL_ variables which must be set to specific values in order to enable their gated behaviors. Note that the specific values will change over time to reinforce their experimental nature. When used, a warning will be generated to indicate that an experimental feature is in use and that the affected behavior in the project is not part of CMake's stability guarantees.

Export Package Dependencies

In order to activate support for this experimental feature, set

• variable CMAKE_EXPERIMENTAL_EXPORT_PACKAGE_DEPENDENCIES to
• value 1942b4fa-b2c5-4546-9385-83f254070067.

This UUID may change in future versions of CMake. Be sure to use the value documented here by the source tree of the version of CMake with which you are experimenting.

When activated, this experimental feature provides the following:

• The install(EXPORT) and export(EXPORT) commands have experimental EXPORT_PACKAGE_DEPENDENCIES arguments to generate find_dependency calls automatically.
• Details of the calls may be configured using the export(SETUP) command's PACKAGE_DEPENDENCY argument.
• The package name associated with specific targets may be specified using the CMAKE_EXPORT_FIND_PACKAGE_NAME variable and/or

EXPORT_FIND_PACKAGE_NAME target property.

Export Common Package Specification Package Information

In order to activate support for this experimental feature, set

• variable CMAKE_EXPERIMENTAL_EXPORT_PACKAGE_INFO to
• value b80be207-778e-46ba-8080-b23bba22639e.

This UUID may change in future versions of CMake. Be sure to use the value documented here by the source tree of the version of CMake with which you are experimenting.

When activated, this experimental feature provides the following:

• The experimental install(PACKAGE_INFO) command is available to export package information in the Common Package Specification format.

Find/Import Common Package Specification Packages

In order to activate support for this experimental feature, set

• variable CMAKE_EXPERIMENTAL_FIND_CPS_PACKAGES to
• value e82e467b-f997-4464-8ace-b00808fff261.

This UUID may change in future versions of CMake. Be sure to use the value documented here by the source tree of the version of CMake with which you are experimenting.

When activated, this experimental feature provides the following:

• The :command:`find_package` command will also search for packages which are described using Common Package Specification. Refer to the :command:`find_package` documentation for details.

C++ import std support

In order to activate support for import std in C++23 and newer targets, set

• variable CMAKE_EXPERIMENTAL_CXX_IMPORT_STD to
• value a9e1cf81-9932-4810-974b-6eccaf14e457.

This UUID may change in future versions of CMake. Be sure to use the value documented here by the source tree of the version of CMake with which you are experimenting. It must be set before the CXX toolchain is discovered by CMake, usually as part of a :command:`project` call.

When activated, this experimental feature provides the following:

• The :prop_tgt:`CXX_MODULE_STD` target property and its initializing variable :variable:`CMAKE_CXX_MODULE_STD`.
• Targets with the property set to a true value and at least cxx_std_23 may use import std; in any scanned C++ source file.

Build database support

In order to activate support for exporting build databases, set

• variable CMAKE_EXPERIMENTAL_EXPORT_BUILD_DATABASE to
• value 73194a1d-c0b5-41b9-9190-a4512925e192.

This UUID may change in future versions of CMake. Be sure to use the value documented here by the source tree of the version of CMake with which you are experimenting.

When activated, this experimental feature provides the following:

• The :prop_tgt:`EXPORT_BUILD_DATABASE` target property and its initializing variable :variable:`CMAKE_EXPORT_BUILD_DATABASE` and environment variable :envvar:`CMAKE_EXPORT_BUILD_DATABASE`.
• Targets with the property set to a true value will have their C++ build information exported to the build database.

Instrumentation

In order to activate support for the :command:`cmake_instrumentation` command, set

• variable CMAKE_EXPERIMENTAL_INSTRUMENTATION to
• value a37d1069-1972-4901-b9c9-f194aaf2b6e0.

To enable instrumentation at the user-level, files should be placed under either <CMAKE_CONFIG_DIR>/instrumentation-a37d1069-1972-4901-b9c9-f194aaf2b6e0 or <CMAKE_BINARY_DIR>/.cmake/instrumentation-a37d1069-1972-4901-b9c9-f194aaf2b6e0.

To include instrumentation data in CTest XML files (for submission to CDash), you need to set the following environment variables:

• CTEST_USE_INSTRUMENTATION=1
• CTEST_EXPERIMENTAL_INSTRUMENTATION=a37d1069-1972-4901-b9c9-f194aaf2b6e0