ci: failure in Windows native job #34012

Has been re-run multiple times. https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/actions/runs/19800578606/job/57234826268?pr=33973#step:9:900:

Completed submission of libevent[core,thread]:x64-windows@2.1.12#7 to 1 binary cache(s) in 248 ms
Waiting for 1 remaining binary cache submissions...
Completed submission of sqlite3[core,json1]:x64-windows@3.50.4 to 1 binary cache(s) in 399 ms (1/1)
All requested installations completed successfully in: 2.4 min
-- Running vcpkg install - done
-- Selecting Windows SDK version 10.0.26100.0 to target Windows 10.0.20348.
-- The CXX compiler identification is MSVC 19.44.35221.0
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info - done
-- Check for working CXX compiler: C:/Program Files/Microsoft Visual Studio/2022/Enterprise/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.44.35207/bin/Hostx64/x64/cl.exe - skipped
-- Detecting CXX compile features
-- Detecting CXX compile features - done
-- Performing Test CXX_SUPPORTS__WX__OPTIONS_STRICT
-- Performing Test CXX_SUPPORTS__WX__OPTIONS_STRICT - Success
CMake Error at C:/Program Files/CMake/share/cmake-3.31/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:233 (message):
  Could NOT find PkgConfig (missing: PKG_CONFIG_EXECUTABLE)
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  C:/Program Files/CMake/share/cmake-3.31/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:603 (_FPHSA_FAILURE_MESSAGE)
  C:/Program Files/CMake/share/cmake-3.31/Modules/FindPkgConfig.cmake:114 (find_package_handle_standard_args)
  C:/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake:908 (_find_package)
  cmake/module/FindZeroMQ.cmake:31 (find_package)
  C:/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake:908 (_find_package)
  CMakeLists.txt:127 (find_package)


-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

I haven't looked here, but generally CI does not work well with re-running tasks, when the code is merged with current master, but the ci config is stale.

The solution is to minimize the ci config (yaml) and pull out all ci settings and ci scripts into stand-alone files (similar to the files .github/ci-lint-exec.py .github/ci-test-each-commit-exec.py)

As the error is zmq related, it could be due to 49c672853503e561cd1e7fed19a32f21ad345370, but again, I haven't checked this closely.

I haven't looked here, but generally CI does not work well with re-running tasks, when the code is merged with current master, but the ci config is stale.

As the error is zmq related, it could be due to 49c6728, but again, I haven't checked this closely.

I concur with both assessments above.

The .github/workflows/ci.yml for the failed run looks outdated: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/actions/runs/19800578606/workflow?pr=33973.

UPDATE. Although the issue occurred in the Windows CI job, it is not specific to Windows.

Hello! I'd like to work on this issue. I'm new to this repo, so any advice would be much appreciated.