meson

Meson

Purpose

Guide agents through Meson project setup, build configuration, the wrap dependency system, and cross-compilation — covering the build system used by GLib, systemd, GStreamer, Mesa, and many major C/C++ projects.

Triggers

• "How do I set up a Meson build?"
• "How do I add a dependency in Meson?"
• "How do I cross-compile with Meson?"
• "Meson wrap isn't finding my dependency"
• "How do I configure build options in Meson?"
• "How do I migrate from CMake/Autotools to Meson?"

Workflow

1. Project setup

# Configure (source-dir, build-dir are positional)
meson setup builddir

# With options
meson setup builddir \
    --buildtype=release \
    --prefix=/usr/local \
    -Db_lto=true \
    -Db_sanitize=address

# Reconfigure (change options on existing builddir)
meson configure builddir -Dbuildtype=debug

# Show all available options
meson configure builddir

--buildtype	Equivalent flags
debug (default)	-O0 -g
debugoptimized	-O2 -g
release	-O3 -DNDEBUG
minsize	-Os -DNDEBUG
plain	No flags added

2. Build and test

# Build (from source directory)
meson compile -C builddir

# Or enter builddir and use ninja directly
cd builddir && ninja

# Run tests
meson test -C builddir
meson test -C builddir --verbose          # show test output
meson test -C builddir -t 5               # 5x timeout multiplier
meson test -C builddir --suite unit       # run only 'unit' suite

# Install
meson install -C builddir
# Dry run
meson install -C builddir --dry-run

3. meson.build structure

project('myapp', 'c', 'cpp',
  version : '1.0.0',
  default_options : [
    'c_std=c11',
    'cpp_std=c++17',
    'warning_level=2',
  ]
)

# Find system dependencies
glib_dep = dependency('glib-2.0', version : '>=2.68')
threads_dep = dependency('threads')

# Include directories
inc = include_directories('include')

# Library
mylib = static_library('mylib',
  sources : ['src/lib.c', 'src/util.c'],
  include_directories : inc,
)

# Executable
executable('myapp',
  sources : ['src/main.c'],
  include_directories : inc,
  link_with : mylib,
  dependencies : [glib_dep, threads_dep],
  install : true,
)

# Tests
test('basic', executable('test_basic',
  sources : ['tests/test_basic.c'],
  link_with : mylib,
))