Build Chromium

Once you have a checkout of the chromium repository, you're now ready to build the Chromium binary.

Install the build dependencies

Building Chromium requires many dependencies to be installed on the workstation, including development libraries and tools. Thankfully, getting these dependencies set up and configured is simplified with a script in the Chromium source:

chromium/src$ build/install-build-deps.sh

Set the SDK_BOARD variable

You'll need to find the board name for your test device on Goldeneye (Googlers only). A number of commands use this board name, so you may wish to store it in an environment variable. For example, if your device is an eve (a Pixelbook):

export SDK_BOARD=eve

Make sure that the corresponding board is listed in the cros_boards section of your chromium/.gclient file and subsequently gclient sync has been run; otherwise, the import statement below will fail with a file not found exception. See the ChromiumOS-specific GN args mapping README.md for more information and examples.

Create a build configuration

Create a build configuration for your board. The following example specifies a few important build arguments to set:

chromium/src$ gn gen out_${SDK_BOARD}/Release --args="
    import(\"//build/args/chromeos/${SDK_BOARD}.gni\")
    is_chrome_branded = true
    is_official_build = false
    optimize_webui = false
    target_os = \"chromeos\"
    use_remoteexec = true"

This command creates the file out_${SDK_BOARD}/Release/args.gn containing the contents passed in the --args command above. Future invocations of gn gen will use the cached values in args.gn so passing the --args parameter is no longer necessary. You can edit the cached arguments by editing out_${SDK_BOARD}/Release/args.gn or running the following command:

chromium/src$ gn args out_${SDK_BOARD}/Release

TODO(jhawkins): Link out to a guide on build configurations.

Building Chrome

You are now ready to build the chrome target:

autoninja -C out_${SDK_BOARD}/Release chrome

autoninja is a tool which passes the best parameters to the build command, ninja, to handle build parallelization based on whether remote execution (e.g., Reclient) is enabled and available. ninja is a build system specializing in a fast edit-build cycle and is the tool used to build Chromium.

Common build errors

ninja: error: loading 'build.ninja': No such file or directory

This error cocurs if the build.ninja cache file is not present and updated in the out_${SDK_BOARD}/Release directory. This may happen if gn gen has not been run yet or if that command was interrupted before completing. To fix this error, run gn gen again:

chromium/src$ gn gen out_${SDK_BOARD}/Release

Up next

Once the chrome target successfully builds, you are ready to deploy the Chromium binary to the test device.