---
title: 'Repositories, workspaces, packages, and targets'
---

Bazel builds software from source code organized in directory trees called
repositories. A defined set of repositories comprises the workspace. Source
files in repositories are organized in a nested hierarchy of packages, where
each package is a directory that contains a set of related source files and one
`BUILD` file. The `BUILD` file specifies what software outputs can be built from
the source.

### Repositories {:#repositories}

Source files used in a Bazel build are organized in _repositories_ (often
shortened to _repos_). A repo is a directory tree with a boundary marker file at
its root; such a boundary marker file could be `MODULE.bazel`, `REPO.bazel`, or
in legacy contexts, `WORKSPACE` or `WORKSPACE.bazel`.

The repo in which the current Bazel command is being run is called the _main
repo_. Other, (external) repos are defined by _repo rules_; see [external
dependencies overview](/external/overview) for more information.

## Workspace {:#workspace}

A _workspace_ is the environment shared by all Bazel commands run from the same
main repo. It encompasses the main repo and the set of all defined external
repos.

Note that historically the concepts of "repository" and "workspace" have been
conflated; the term "workspace" has often been used to refer to the main
repository, and sometimes even used as a synonym of "repository".

## Packages {:#packages}

The primary unit of code organization in a repository is the _package_. A
package is a collection of related files and a specification of how they can be
used to produce output artifacts.

A package is defined as a directory containing a
[`BUILD` file](/versions/8.1.0/concepts/build-files) named either `BUILD` or `BUILD.bazel`. A
package includes all files in its directory, plus all subdirectories beneath it,
except those which themselves contain a `BUILD` file. From this definition, no
file or directory may be a part of two different packages.

For example, in the following directory tree there are two packages, `my/app`,
and the subpackage `my/app/tests`. Note that `my/app/data` is not a package, but
a directory belonging to package `my/app`.

```
src/my/app/BUILD
src/my/app/app.cc
src/my/app/data/input.txt
src/my/app/tests/BUILD
src/my/app/tests/test.cc
```

## Targets {:#targets}

A package is a container of _targets_, which are defined in the package's
`BUILD` file. Most targets are one of two principal kinds, _files_ and _rules_.

Files are further divided into two kinds. _Source files_ are usually written by
the efforts of people, and checked in to the repository. _Generated files_,
sometimes called derived files or output files, are not checked in, but are
generated from source files.

The second kind of target is declared with a _rule_. Each rule instance
specifies the relationship between a set of input and a set of output files. The
inputs to a rule may be source files, but they also may be the outputs of other
rules.

Whether the input to a rule is a source file or a generated file is in most
cases immaterial; what matters is only the contents of that file. This fact
makes it easy to replace a complex source file with a generated file produced by
a rule, such as happens when the burden of manually maintaining a highly
structured file becomes too tiresome, and someone writes a program to derive it.
No change is required to the consumers of that file. Conversely, a generated
file may easily be replaced by a source file with only local changes.

The inputs to a rule may also include _other rules_. The precise meaning of such
relationships is often quite complex and language- or rule-dependent, but
intuitively it is simple: a C++ library rule A might have another C++ library
rule B for an input. The effect of this dependency is that B's header files are
available to A during compilation, B's symbols are available to A during
linking, and B's runtime data is available to A during execution.

An invariant of all rules is that the files generated by a rule always belong to
the same package as the rule itself; it is not possible to generate files into
another package. It is not uncommon for a rule's inputs to come from another
package, though.

Package groups are sets of packages whose purpose is to limit accessibility of
certain rules. Package groups are defined by the `package_group` function. They
have three properties: the list of packages they contain, their name, and other
package groups they include. The only allowed ways to refer to them are from the
`visibility` attribute of rules or from the `default_visibility` attribute of
the `package` function; they do not generate or consume files. For more
information, refer to the [`package_group`
documentation](/reference/be/functions#package_group).

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