Asset caching with vcpkg

Note

This section covers an experimental feature of vcpkg which may change or be removed at any time.

Asset caching is a feature that allows vcpkg to use alternative download endpoints to acquire a package's assets. When asset caching is enabled vcpkg attempts to download assets (such as source code and build tools) from a configured mirror location. If the asset is not available in the mirror location, vcpkg will download it from its original source and then store a copy in the mirror for future use.

Asset caching can help with these common development scenarios:

• Improving reliability of continuous integration runs.
• Mirroring download assets in trusted locations for air-gapped environments.
• Maintaining continuity of business if third party sources are changed or become unavailable.

Configuration

Asset caching is configured via:

• The X_VCPKG_ASSET_SOURCES environment variable, or
• The --x-asset-sources command-line option.

In both cases, the expected value is a semicolon-delimited list of sources. Each source has a specific syntax depending on its storage backend (see the asset caching reference documentation to learn how to configure asset caching sources).

Next step

Here are some tasks to try next:

• Set up an asset cache
• Use a custom script as an asset caching source for NuGet