Conan Vcpkg

Conan and vcpkg

Purpose

Guide agents through C/C++ dependency management with Conan and vcpkg: declaring dependencies, integrating with CMake, managing binary compatibility, and choosing the right tool for a given project.

Triggers

• "How do I add a C++ library dependency with Conan?"
• "How do I use vcpkg with CMake?"
• "What's the difference between Conan and vcpkg?"
• "How do I add zlib/openssl/fmt with a package manager?"
• "How do I create a vcpkg.json manifest?"
• "My Conan package build is failing — how do I debug it?"

Workflow

1. Conan vs vcpkg decision

Which package manager?├── Team uses MSVC on Windows primarily → vcpkg (better MSVC integration)├── Need binary packages (no source builds in CI) → Conan (binary cache)├── Need cross-compilation support → Conan (profiles) or Zig-based builds├── Need a specific version of a package → Conan (flexible versioning)├── Quick project setup, just need it to work → vcpkg (simpler)└── Open-source project, broad audience → vcpkg (GitHub-integrated)

2. vcpkg setup

# Clone vcpkggit clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git./vcpkg/bootstrap-vcpkg.sh    # Linux/macOS./vcpkg/bootstrap-vcpkg.bat   # Windows
# Install packages (classic mode)./vcpkg/vcpkg install zlib curl openssl
# Integrate with CMakecmake -S . -B build \    -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=/path/to/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake

3. vcpkg manifest mode (recommended)

// vcpkg.json — place at project root{    "name": "myapp",    "version": "1.0.0",    "dependencies": [        "zlib",        "curl",        { "name": "openssl", "version>=": "3.0.0" },        { "name": "boost-filesystem", "platform": "!windows" },        {            "name": "fmt",            "features": ["core"]        }    ],    "builtin-baseline": "abc123..."}

# CMakeLists.txtcmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.20)project(myapp)
find_package(ZLIB REQUIRED)find_package(CURL REQUIRED)find_package(fmt REQUIRED)
add_executable(myapp src/main.cpp)target_link_libraries(myapp PRIVATE ZLIB::ZLIB CURL::libcurl fmt::fmt)

# Build — vcpkg automatically installs dependenciescmake -S . -B build \    -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=/path/to/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmakecmake --build build

4. Conan setup

# Install Conanpip install conan
# Set up default profile (detects compiler, OS)conan profile detect
# Check your profileconan profile show

5. Conan with CMake (Conan 2.x)

# conanfile.txt[requires]zlib/1.3fmt/10.2.1openssl/3.2.0
[generators]CMakeDepsCMakeToolchain
[options]openssl/*:shared=False

# Install dependenciesconan install . --output-folder=build --build=missing
# Configure and buildcmake -S . -B build \    -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=build/conan_toolchain.cmake \    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Releasecmake --build build

# CMakeLists.txtfind_package(ZLIB REQUIRED)find_package(fmt REQUIRED)find_package(OpenSSL REQUIRED)
add_executable(myapp src/main.cpp)target_link_libraries(myapp PRIVATE    ZLIB::ZLIB    fmt::fmt    OpenSSL::SSL OpenSSL::Crypto)

6. Conan profiles for cross-compilation

# ~/.conan2/profiles/linux-arm64[settings]os=Linuxarch=armv8compiler=gcccompiler.version=12compiler.libcxx=libstdc++11build_type=Release
[buildenv]CC=aarch64-linux-gnu-gccCXX=aarch64-linux-gnu-g++
[tool_requires]# Tools that run on build machine (x86)

# Cross-compileconan install . \    --profile:build=default \    --profile:host=linux-arm64 \    --output-folder=build-arm \    --build=missing

7. conanfile.py (advanced)

# conanfile.pyfrom conan import ConanFilefrom conan.tools.cmake import CMakeToolchain, CMakeDeps, CMake
class MyAppConan(ConanFile):    name = "myapp"    version = "1.0"    settings = "os", "compiler", "build_type", "arch"
    def requirements(self):        self.requires("zlib/1.3")        self.requires("fmt/10.2.1")        if self.settings.os == "Linux":            self.requires("openssl/3.2.0")
    def generate(self):        tc = CMakeToolchain(self)        tc.generate()        deps = CMakeDeps(self)        deps.generate()
    def build(self):        cmake = CMake(self)        cmake.configure()        cmake.build()

8. Common dependency lookup

For vcpkg baseline pinning and Conan binary cache setup, see references/package-manager-patterns.md [blocked].

Related skills

• Use skills/build-systems/cmake for CMake integration with both Conan and vcpkg
• Use skills/compilers/cross-gcc for cross-compilation with Conan profiles
• Use skills/build-systems/ninja as the backend for package-managed projects