ci: Switch to dynamic library linkage in native Windows job

hebasto commented at 9:34 am on April 1, 2025: member

This PR significantly reduces the vcpkg binary cache size, improving CI caching performance:

Branch	Cache Size
master	2.6 GB
this PR	430 MB

Also see #31176 (comment).

hebasto added the label Windows on Apr 1, 2025

hebasto added the label Tests on Apr 1, 2025

DrahtBot commented at 9:34 am on April 1, 2025: contributor

The following sections might be updated with supplementary metadata relevant to reviewers and maintainers.

Code Coverage & Benchmarks

For details see: https://corecheck.dev/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls/32182.

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ACK	maflcko

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No conflicts as of last run.

maflcko commented at 9:39 am on April 1, 2025: member

Was there a reason to use static linking in this CI here before?

hebasto commented at 10:02 am on April 1, 2025: member

Was there a reason to use static linking in this CI here before?

The static linking was inherited from the Cirrus task in #28173, which, in turn, used our custom Qt build instead of the vcpkg manager.

My guess is that, back when we were using our custom MSVC project file, static linking worked seamlessly without needing to manage DLL locations.

Maybe @sipsorcery could provide more details.

sipsorcery commented at 10:05 am on April 1, 2025: contributor

The msvc build was created with static linking because that’s what the non-msvc build does. Other than that no real reason.

DrahtBot added the label Needs rebase on Apr 1, 2025

hebasto force-pushed on Apr 2, 2025

hebasto commented at 8:34 am on April 2, 2025: member

Rebased due to a conflict with the merged bitcoin/bitcoin#32184.

DrahtBot removed the label Needs rebase on Apr 2, 2025

ci: Switch to dynamic library linkage in native Windows job

This change significantly reduces the vcpkg binary cache size, improving
CI caching performance.

7967fe5bfd

hebasto force-pushed on Apr 2, 2025

hebasto marked this as ready for review on Apr 2, 2025

hebasto commented at 4:50 pm on April 2, 2025: member

Rebased and undrafted.

maflcko commented at 5:32 pm on April 2, 2025: member

lgtm ACK 7967fe5bfd3e881353db9a4428ea913ce4ea15a5

fanquake merged this on Apr 3, 2025

fanquake closed this on Apr 3, 2025

hebasto deleted the branch on Apr 3, 2025

TheCharlatan referenced this in commit a9c46ce3c3 on Apr 24, 2025

stickies-v referenced this in commit 772a33e052 on May 23, 2025

yuvicc referenced this in commit 069643f094 on Jul 6, 2025

bug-castercv502 referenced this in commit 5b0af4b944 on Sep 28, 2025

hodlinator commented at 9:37 am on October 1, 2025: contributor

Noticed the build artifact x86_64-w64-mingw32-executables-<run> is 916MB (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/actions/runs/18155350909?pr=31723 / https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/actions/runs/18155350909/job/51673850541?pr=31723#step:9:161).

Artifact contents:

 0$ unzip -l x86_64-w64-mingw32-executables-18155350909.zip 
 1Archive:  x86_64-w64-mingw32-executables-18155350909.zip
 2  Length      Date    Time    Name
 3---------  ---------- -----   ----
 4617942101  10-01-2025 07:57   bin/bench_bitcoin.exe
 5610761406  10-01-2025 07:57   bin/bitcoin-qt.exe
 6 62115659  10-01-2025 07:55   bin/bitcoin-tx.exe
 7 28860486  10-01-2025 07:55   bin/bitcoin-cli.exe
 8 28258672  10-01-2025 07:55   bin/bitcoin-util.exe
 9215229370  10-01-2025 07:55   bin/bitcoin-wallet.exe
10 17588530  10-01-2025 07:55   bin/bitcoin.exe
11472440702  10-01-2025 07:56   bin/bitcoind.exe
12722128888  10-01-2025 07:59   bin/fuzz.exe
13963138284  10-01-2025 07:59   bin/test_bitcoin.exe
14  1006274  10-01-2025 07:54   src/secp256k1/bin/exhaustive_tests.exe
15  3244108  10-01-2025 07:54   src/secp256k1/bin/noverify_tests.exe
16  3642166  10-01-2025 07:54   src/secp256k1/bin/tests.exe
17  4811144  10-01-2025 07:53   src/univalue/object.exe
18  4115324  10-01-2025 07:53   src/univalue/unitester.exe
19      967  10-01-2025 07:53   test/config.ini
20---------                     -------
213755284081                     16 files

test_bitcoin.exe itself is almost 1GB when uncompressed.

Would it be okay to use stripped binaries in the artifact?

Tried reproducing running env -i HOME="$HOME" PATH="$PATH" USER="$USER" ... FILE_ENV="./ci/test/00_setup_env_win64.sh" ./ci/test_run_all.sh' and noticed we have stripped binaries available in release/

 0root@23d2a9125040:/ci_container_base/ci/scratch/build-x86_64-w64-mingw32# ls -alh bin/ release/
 1bin/:
 2total 3.5G
 3drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4.0K Oct  1 09:04 .
 4drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4.0K Oct  1 09:04 ..
 5-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 589M Oct  1 09:02 bench_bitcoin.exe
 6-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  28M Oct  1 08:58 bitcoin-cli.exe
 7-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 582M Oct  1 09:00 bitcoin-qt.exe
 8-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  60M Oct  1 08:58 bitcoin-tx.exe
 9-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  27M Oct  1 08:58 bitcoin-util.exe
10-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 206M Oct  1 08:58 bitcoin-wallet.exe
11-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 4.9M Oct  1 08:57 bitcoin.exe
12-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 451M Oct  1 08:59 bitcoind.exe
13-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 688M Oct  1 09:04 fuzz.exe
14-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 918M Oct  1 09:04 test_bitcoin.exe
15
16release/:
17total 94M
18drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4.0K Oct  1 09:04 .
19drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4.0K Oct  1 09:04 ..
20-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 2.2M Oct  1 09:04 bitcoin-cli.exe
21-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  38M Oct  1 09:04 bitcoin-qt.exe
22-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 4.0M Oct  1 09:04 bitcoin-tx.exe
23-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 1.9M Oct  1 09:04 bitcoin-util.exe
24-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 7.9M Oct  1 09:04 bitcoin-wallet.exe
25-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 1.2M Oct  1 09:04 bitcoin.exe
26-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  14M Oct  1 09:04 bitcoind.exe
27-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root  26M Oct  1 09:04 test_bitcoin.exe

ci: Switch to dynamic library linkage in native Windows job #32182

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