Windows Build Environment

This guide explains what packages, tools, and settings are available in the Travis Windows CI environment (often referred to as the “CI environment”).

Take note that our Windows environment is in early stages and a minimal subset of what’s available on Linux or macOS is currently supported.

Early adopters of our Windows environment can ask their questions/report issues in the Windows category of our Community Forums.

Use Windows #

To use our Windows build infrastructure, add the following to your .travis.yml:

os: windows

Travis CI also supports the Ubuntu Linux Environment, macOS Build Environment and FreeBSD Environment.

Windows Version #

Only Windows Server, version 1809 is currently supported.

Note that this is a Semi-Annual Channel release that does not contain GUI and multimedia components. Follow this Community topic if you run into this limitation.

Chocolatey #

Chocolatey, the package manager for Windows, is installed and can be used to install Windows packages.

Git BASH #

Git BASH is the shell that’s used to run your build. See Git for Windows for more details.

Powershell #

Powershell can be used by calling powershell in your .travis.yml file for now. We are looking into adding first class Powershell support very soon.

File System #

VMs running Windows use the default file system, NTFS.

Supported languages #

The following is a list of the supported languages.

• Bash language: bash or language: shell
• C with language: c
• C++ with language: cpp
• Go with language: go
• Julia with language: julia
• Node.js with language: node_js
• Rust with language: rust

Pre-installed Chocolatey packages #

The following is a list of the pre-installed Chocolatey packages.

• 7zip.install v19.0
• chocolatey v0.10.15
• chocolatey-core.extension v1.3.5.1
• chocolatey-dotnetfx.extension v1.0.1
• chocolatey-fastanswers.extension v0.0.2
• chocolatey-visualstudio.extension v1.8.1
• chocolatey-windowsupdate.extension v1.0.4
• cmake.install v3.16.2
• curl v7.68.0
• DotNet4.5.2 v4.5.2.20140902
• DotNet4.6 v4.6.00081.20150925
• DotNet4.6-TargetPack v4.6.00081.20150925
• DotNet4.6.1 v4.6.01055.20170308
• dotnetfx v4.8.0.20190930
• git.install v2.25.0¹
• hashdeep v4.4
• jq v1.6
• KB2919355 v1.0.20160915
• KB2919442 v1.0.20160915
• KB2999226 v1.0.20181019
• KB3033929 v1.0.5
• KB3035131 v1.0.3
• llvm v9.0.0
• microsoft-build-tools v15.0.26320.2
• mingw v8.1.0
• netfx-4.5.1-devpack v4.5.50932
• netfx-4.5.2-devpack v4.5.5165101.20180721
• netfx-4.6.1-devpack v4.6.01055.00
• rsync v5.5.0.20190204
• ruby v2.7.0.1
• vcredist140 v14.24.28127.4
• vcredist2017 v14.16.27033
• visualstudio-installer v2.0.1
• visualstudio2017-workload-netcorebuildtools v1.1.2
• visualstudio2017-workload-vctools v1.3.2
• visualstudio2017-workload-webbuildtools v1.3.2
• visualstudio2017buildtools v15.9.18.0
• Wget v1.20.3.20190531
• windows-sdk-10.1 v10.1.18362.1
• winscp v5.15.9
• winscp.install v5.15.9
• wsl v1.0.1

A basic Python 2.7.9 interpreter is also included: /C/ProgramData/chocolatey/bin/python.exe

Use MSYS2 #

MSYS2 is a popular development environment for building GCC-based projects with Unix-style build systems. While it isn’t included in the Windows image, it is fairly easy to install via the Chocolatey package using the following additions to the sections of your .travis.yml:

before_install:
- |-
    case $TRAVIS_OS_NAME in
      windows)
        [[ ! -f C:/tools/msys64/msys2_shell.cmd ]] && rm -rf C:/tools/msys64
        choco uninstall -y mingw
        choco upgrade --no-progress -y msys2
        export msys2='cmd //C RefreshEnv.cmd '
        export msys2+='& set MSYS=winsymlinks:nativestrict '
        export msys2+='& C:\\tools\\msys64\\msys2_shell.cmd -defterm -no-start'
        export mingw64="$msys2 -mingw64 -full-path -here -c "\"\$@"\" --"
        export msys2+=" -msys2 -c "\"\$@"\" --"
        $msys2 pacman --sync --noconfirm --needed mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain
        ## Install more MSYS2 packages from https://packages.msys2.org/base here
        taskkill //IM gpg-agent.exe //F  # https://travis-ci.community/t/4967
        export PATH=/C/tools/msys64/mingw64/bin:$PATH
        export MAKE=mingw32-make  # so that Autotools can find it
        ;;
    esac

before_cache:
- |-
    case $TRAVIS_OS_NAME in
      windows)
        # https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/137322/107554
        $msys2 pacman --sync --clean --noconfirm
        ;;
    esac

cache:
    directories:
    - $HOME/AppData/Local/Temp/chocolatey
    - /C/tools/msys64

This will download and install MSYS2 the first time, and store both the downloaded initial archive and the MSYS2 installation in your build cache. Subsequent builds will avoid re-downloading the initial archive and will update the cached installation before use, and cache the updated installation upon success.

MSYS2 contains two noteworthy subsystems: “msys2” and “mingw64”. The code above prepares the $msys2 and $mingw64 prefixes for entering the corresponding shells. As an example, the $msys2 prefix is used to run pacman appropriately. Your build commands should use the $mingw64 prefix to build native Windows programs, and the $msys2 prefix to build POSIX-based programs requiring the MSYS2 DLL.

A point of caution: the pre-installed “mingw” Chocolatey package should not be used within any MSYS2 subsystem. (In fact, the above snippet uninstalls the “mingw” Chocolatey package to be safe.) Note that the MSYS2 wiki says:

Be aware that mixing in programs from other MSYS2 installations, Cygwin installations, compiler toolchains or even various other programs is not supported and will probably break things in unexpected ways.