Get started with C++ Build Insights

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The C++ Build Insights tools are available in Visual Studio 2019 and later. To see the documentation for that version, set the Visual Studio Version selector control for this article to Visual Studio 2019 or later. It's found at the top of the table of contents on this page.

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C++ Build Insights is a collection of tools that provides increased visibility into the Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) tool chain. The tools collect data about your C++ builds, and present it in a format that can help you answer common questions, like:

Are my builds sufficiently parallelized?
What should I include in my pre-compiled header (PCH)?
Is there a specific bottleneck I should focus on to increase my build speeds?

The main components of this technology are:

vcperf.exe, a command-line utility that you can use to collect traces for your builds,
a Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA) extension that allows you to view build traces in WPA, and
the C++ Build Insights SDK, a software development kit for creating your own tools that consume C++ Build Insights data.