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+# How to set up a build environment
+
+We strongly recommend a Linux workstation - it offers the
+best developer experience by a fair margin. Fedora or Ubuntu are good choices.
+
+The more CPU cores, the merrier - our build is fully parallelized, but the monorepo builds
+a LOT of stuff, including all of EDK2, QEMU, the Linux kernel, Kubernetes... Bazel is smart about
+not rebuilding things that haven't changed, but sometimes, you'll still be hit with a full rebuild
+(such as when the sysroot or Bazel version changes).
+
+We will offer pre-warmed build caches in the future, but for now, bring a big rig!
+
+## Dependencies
+
+Monogon's monorepo uses [Bazel](https://bazel.build) for fast, hermetic and fully reproducible builds.
+
+Our build environment brings its own hermetic and reproducible sysroot,
+so we only require minimal host dependencies:
+
+- Any Linux distribution with a reasonably recent kernel with unprivileged 
+  user namespaces enabled. Bazel requires user namespaces to set up its hermetic per-action 
+  sandbox without special privileges or capabilities.
+
+- [Bazelisk](https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazelisk) >= v1.15.0. Bazel is serious about breaking
+  backwards compatibility with each major release, so you need the right version to build the repo.
+  Bazelisk downloads (and verifies) the correct version of Bazel for you. It's the de-facto standard
+  way of using Bazel, a bit like rustup is for Rust users.
+
+The following distributions are known to work:
+
+- Fedora >= 36
+- Ubuntu >= 20.04
+- Debian >= 11
+- RHEL / Alma / Rocky >= 8.4
+- NixOS >= 22.05 (see below)
+
+You can use this snippet to install the official Bazelisk release binary to `/usr/local/bin`:
+
+```bash
+TMPFILE=$(mktemp) && \
+  curl -L -o $TMPFILE \
+    https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazelisk/releases/download/v1.15.0/bazelisk-linux-amd64 && \
+  sha256sum -c - <<< "19fd84262d5ef0cb958bcf01ad79b528566d8fef07ca56906c5c516630a0220b  $TMPFILE" && \
+  sudo install -m 0755 $TMPFILE /usr/local/bin/bazel && \
+  rm $TMPFILE
+```
+
+Alternatively, if you have a Go >= 1.16 toolchain, you can compile it yourself:
+
+```bash
+# This uses Go's transparency log for pinning to ensure the release hasn't been tampered with.
+go install github.com/bazelbuild/bazelisk@v1.15.0 
+sudo mv ~/go/bin/bazelisk /usr/local/bin/bazel
+```
+
+### /dev/kvm access for test suites
+
+Monogon's tests make extensive use of KVM to run virtual machines, both to test the OS as well
+as running various microVM-based unit tests. If you want to run all tests, you'll need to make sure
+that your local user has access to `/dev/kvm`. You can check this by running `touch /dev/kvm`.
+
+If you only want to build artifacts without running tests, no KVM access is required.
+
+On most Linux distributions, you can add your user to the `kvm` group to allow access to `/dev/kvm`:
+
+```bash
+sudo gpasswd -a $USER kvm
+# re-login or run "sudo -u $USER -i" to get a shell with the new group membership
+```
+
+If you are running in a virtual machine, make sure that your virtualization software supports
+nested virtualization - otherwise, it won't be possible to use KVM inside the VM.
+
+`/dev/kvm` is considered safe to use by unprivileged users. All of Monogon's monorepo can
+be built and tested without root privileges or other dangerous capabilities.
+
+### NixOS
+
+Bazelisk and rules_go does not work on NixOS since its prebuilt binaries are dynamically linked,
+so we cannot bootstrap the sandbox. We recommend building in a "normal" container.
+
+## IntelliJ
+
+This repository is compatible with the IntelliJ Bazel plugin out of the box, which enables
+full autocompletion for external dependencies and generated code.
+
+The following steps are necessary:
+
+- Install the [Bazel](https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/8609-bazel),
+  Go and Protocol Buffer plugins in IntelliJ.
+- Make sure that Bazel "*Bazel Binary Location*" in Other Settings → Bazel Settings points to Bazelisk.
+- Use _File → Import Bazel project_... and select your monorepo checkout.
+
+After running the first sync (Alt-Y), everything should now resolve in the IDE, including generated code.
+Whenever the project structure changes, re-run the sync to update the IDE.
+
+It can be useful to configure an External Tool to run Gazelle and add a keyboard shortcut
+to quickly run it after changing the project layout.
+
+## Trouble?
+
+Developer experience is very important. Please file a GitHub issue if you run into any problems
+or encounter any pain points - we want to fix them!