software-cmake

name	software-cmake
description	CMake build system detection, configure/build/install flow via session_configure/session_build_install/session_build_annotated, CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH dftracer injection, and per-system/per-dependency lesson tagging. Load this skill for any project whose top level is CMakeLists.txt.
metadata	{"type":"software"}

Detection

• Top-level CMakeLists.txt with project(<name> ...). Check for a cmake_minimum_required(VERSION ...) line to confirm the minimum version.
• Look for option(...) declarations for project-specific toggles before calling session_configure — an unrecognized -D flag name is silently ignored by CMake rather than erroring, so read the options first.
• find_package(<name> ...) / find_library(...) calls determine how a dependency is located — CONFIG mode (a <Name>Config.cmake file) vs MODULE mode (a Find<Name>.cmake script) vs pkg-config via pkg_check_modules(...). Check which one dftracer or another dependency needs BEFORE assuming -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<prefix> alone is sufficient — dftracer currently ships CMake config files but no .pc file, so find_package(dftracer CONFIG) works but pkg_check_modules(dftracer) does not.

Configure / build / install flow (via MCP tools)

session_configure(run_id, extra_cmake_flags="-DENABLE_TESTS=OFF ...")
session_build_install(run_id, jobs=<n>)

or for the annotated tree:

session_build_annotated(run_id, extra_cmake_flags="...")

• session_configure runs cmake -S source -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=install -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo <extra_cmake_flags>.
• session_build_annotated automatically appends -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<dftracer_install_prefix> when session_install_dftracer was already called — you do not need to pass this yourself.
• session_build_install runs make -j<jobs> then make install inside build/ (or build_ann/ for the annotated tree) — this project uses the Makefile generator, not Ninja, by default.
• Re-running session_configure on an existing build dir reconfigures in place; no need to delete build/ first unless CMake's cache is corrupted (symptom: stale CMakeCache.txt referencing a deleted compiler/prefix — fix by deleting build/CMakeCache.txt specifically, not the whole tree).

Lessons are per-system and per-dependency, not universal

CMake itself is portable, but whether find_package resolves a dependency via CONFIG or MODULE mode, which system paths are searched, and what a missing dependency's exact error looks like varies by system and by the dependency itself. Tag every lesson below with the (system, dependency) pair it was observed on. Cross-link the system-specific half into the relevant system-<system> skill when it's about the site rather than CMake itself.

Lessons

(none recorded yet for this repo's sessions beyond what's captured per workload-<app> skills for specific projects — e.g. h5bench's CMake quirks live in workload-h5bench. Record a NEW cross-project CMake lesson here; keep project-specific CMakeLists.txt quirks in that project's own skill.)