Bazel should warn if an unknown feature is given
- Dominant language
- Java
- Stars
- 25.8k
- Forks
- 4.6k
- Avg merge
- 2d 18h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 75
Description
### Description of the bug:
You can provide Bazel with features with typos or completely non-existent and you wouldn't know about it.
### Which category does this issue belong to?
CLI
### What's the simplest, easiest way to reproduce this bug? Please provide a minimal example if possible.
Here you can see I am providing the feature `blah` and it doesn't do anything.
This is also problematic if you give a comma separated features value rather than specifying it on the command line multiple times. `--features foo --features bar` vs `--features foo,bar`
```
❯ bazel build --features=blah //examples/c++:example_add
WARNING: Build option --features has changed, discarding analysis cache (this can be expensive, see https://bazel.build/advanced/performance/iteration-speed).
INFO: Analyzed target //examples/c++:example_add (0 packages loaded, 2956 targets configured).
INFO: Found 1 target...
Target //examples/c++:example_add up-to-date:
bazel-bin/examples/c++/example_add
INFO: Elapsed time: 0.743s, Critical Path: 0.01s
```
### Which operating system are you running Bazel on?
Linux
### What is the output of `bazel info release`?
release 7.0.2
### If `bazel info release` returns `development version` or `(@non-git)`, tell us how you built Bazel.
N/A
### What's the output of `git remote get-url origin; git rev-parse HEAD` ?
```text
N/A
```
### Is this a regression? If yes, please try to identify the Bazel commit where the bug was introduced.
No
### Have you found anything relevant by searching the web?
Seems like this is the default behavior.
### Any other information, logs, or outputs that you want to share?
_No response_
Contributor guide
Research direction
Start by tracing how Bazel parses the --features option and handles repeated versus comma-separated values. Reproduce the examples with an unknown feature, then inspect the existing feature validation or diagnostic tests if available. Done means unknown feature names produce a clear warning without breaking valid feature handling.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- java
- Domain
- build-system, cli
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 42/100