Port Policies Reference

Port policies can be set to 'disabled' (the default) or 'enabled' in a portfile.cmake. For example:

set(VCPKG_POLICY_EMPTY_INCLUDE_FOLDER enabled)

VCPKG_POLICY_ALLOW_DEBUG_INCLUDE

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for the debug/include directory, which ports should not create.

VCPKG_POLICY_ALLOW_DEBUG_SHARE

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for the debug/share directory, which ports should not create.

VCPKG_POLICY_ALLOW_DLLS_IN_LIB

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for DLLs installed to the 'lib' directory rather than the 'bin' directory.

VCPKG_POLICY_ALLOW_EMPTY_FOLDERS

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for empty directories created by a port. Empty directories are not considered semantically part of what a port installs, and aren't representable to several binary caching backends.

VCPKG_POLICY_ALLOW_EXES_IN_BIN

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for exe files in the 'bin' directory, which should not exist. Build tools should be moved to the tools directory, possibly using vcpkg_copy_tools.

VCPKG_POLICY_ALLOW_KERNEL32_FROM_XBOX

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for linking with kernel32 when a port requests targeting XBox. Binaries linked with kernel32 can't run on the XBox, which does not have kernel32.dll.

VCPKG_POLICY_ALLOW_OBSOLETE_MSVCRT

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for old C runtime libraries.

VCPKG_POLICY_ALLOW_RESTRICTED_HEADERS

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for taking headers normally reserved by the operating system and standard library.

VCPKG_POLICY_CMAKE_HELPER_PORT

Marks that a port is intended to provide CMake functions to other ports, and that depending ports should load vcpkg_port_config.cmake set by this port.

VCPKG_POLICY_DLLS_IN_STATIC_LIBRARY

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for DLLs generated by ports when a triplet requests a static build.

VCPKG_POLICY_DLLS_WITHOUT_EXPORTS

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for DLLs without exports. DLLs without exports are usually not useful to callers. Providing a good dynamic linking experience on Windows requires that a library define a DLL interface. See also Do not add CMAKE_WINDOWS_EXPORT_ALL_SYMBOLS in the maintainer guide.

VCPKG_POLICY_DLLS_WITHOUT_LIBS

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for DLLs generated without import libraries. These DLLs can be more difficult to use as the functions exported by that DLL won't be visible to the linker.

VCPKG_POLICY_EMPTY_INCLUDE_FOLDER

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for empty include directories. Empty include directories usually mean that headers are incorrectly installed.

VCPKG_POLICY_EMPTY_PACKAGE

Disables all post-build checks and prevents a port from being included in a vcpkg export'd package for some package types.

VCPKG_POLICY_MISMATCHED_NUMBER_OF_BINARIES

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for a matching number of release and debug binaries.

VCPKG_POLICY_ONLY_RELEASE_CRT

Indicates that a port intends to install only components that use the release C Runtime libraries, and that linking with the debug C Runtime libraries is a bug. See also VCPKG_POLICY_SKIP_CRT_LINKAGE_CHECK.

VCPKG_POLICY_SKIP_ABSOLUTE_PATHS_CHECK

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for absolute paths embedded in an installed file. Absolute paths generally break binary caching, as the installed tree may have a different root in different vcpkg instances.

VCPKG_POLICY_SKIP_ALL_POST_BUILD_CHECKS

Disables all vcpkg's post-build checks.

VCPKG_POLICY_SKIP_APPCONTAINER_CHECK

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for the appcontainer bit, even when a triplet requests targeting UWP.

VCPKG_POLICY_SKIP_ARCHITECTURE_CHECK

Disables vcpkg's post-build check that binaries created by a port target the architecture requested by the triplet.

VCPKG_POLICY_SKIP_COPYRIGHT_CHECK

Disables vcpkg's post-build check that a port installs a copyright file intended to contain the licensing information to use that port.

VCPKG_POLICY_SKIP_CRT_LINKAGE_CHECK

Disables vcpkg's post-build checks for linking with correct C Runtime libraries entirely.

VCPKG_POLICY_SKIP_DUMPBIN_CHECKS

This policy has no effect. In old copies of vcpkg it was intended to workaround environments which did not provide the dumpbin utility such as MinGW by disabling post-build checks that required it. In current copies of vcpkg, the features provided by dumpbin are now implemented directly without needing to invoke dumpbin.

VCPKG_POLICY_SKIP_LIB_CMAKE_MERGE_CHECK

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for CMake configs for the release and debug configurations being merged into a single config. This is usually caused by forgetting to call vcpkg_cmake_config_fixup.

VCPKG_POLICY_SKIP_MISPLACED_REGULAR_FILES_CHECK

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for regular files installed in places regular files are not intended to be. The searched locations should only contain directories.

VCPKG_POLICY_SKIP_PKGCONFIG_CHECK

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for pkgconfig (.pc) files being installed in correct locations. Incorrectly installed .pc won't be found by pkgconf or pkg-config, or advertise architecture independence when that is not actually provided.

VCPKG_POLICY_SKIP_USAGE_INSTALL_CHECK

Disables vcpkg's post-build check for forgotten usage text. This is triggered when a port contains a file named usage but no ${CURRENT_PACKAGES_DIR}/share/${PORT}/usage exists, indicating it was likely a usage was intended to be installed but was not.