Add bazel init to setup new workspaces

[jvolkman]

Description of the feature request:

Add a bazel init command that sets up a skeleton Bazel workspace for new projects. It could create WORKSPACE, BUILD.bazel, .bazelrc and maybe others, using a template that applies modern best practices.

The init command is popular in other tools. E.g.,

• git init - create a new git repo
• npm init - create a new npm package
• poetry init - create a new Poetry (python) package
• cargo init - create a new Cargo (rust) package

What underlying problem are you trying to solve with this feature?

New users often get tripped up by environment variables leaking into their builds and invalidating caches. The --incompatible_strict_action_env flag has existed for years and often solves the problem, but it is disabled by default due (I think) to not being compatible with many existing workspaces.

Arguably --incompatible_strict_action_env should be enabled by default, as well as a variety of other flags for correctness, performance, and dev experience detailed in this post. bazel init would offer a place to put these more recent, incompatible flags for use in new repos, and also provide a skeleton to help new users get started.

[jin]

I have a similar project here, without adding a new bazel command: https://github.com/jin/create-bazel-workspace

[aaronmondal]

+1 for default --incompatible_strict_action_env. This can cause evil confusing behaviour with path overrides.

But do we really need a command for bazel workspace initialization? Anything more than

touch WORKSPACE.bazel MODULE.bazel .bazelrc

would mean opinionating defaults.

I think language-specific setups should be handled by their respective rule repos. Otherwise bazel will depend on external rulesets.

[Greenere]

The ChatGPT thinks that the command "bazel init" exists:

[github-actions]

Thank you for contributing to the Bazel repository! This issue has been marked as stale since it has not had any activity in the last 1+ years. It will be closed in the next 90 days unless any other activity occurs. If you think this issue is still relevant and should stay open, please post any comment here and the issue will no longer be marked as stale.

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically closed due to inactivity. If you're still interested in pursuing this, please post @bazelbuild/triage in a comment here and we'll take a look. Thanks!