bazelbuild/bazel

user.bazelrc or .bazelrc.user?

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#28839 opened on Feb 28, 2026

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P2help wantedteam-Documentationteam-OSStype: documentation (cleanup)

Description

Page link:

No response

Problem description (include actual vs expected text, if applicable):

Bazel best practices recommends

try-import %workspace%/user.bazelrc

But rules-template has

try-import %workspace%/.bazelrc.user

Which is it? It would be nice to be consistent, for users to be able to override project flags in a predictable location.

Where do you see this issue? (include link to specific section of the page, if applicable)

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Any other information you'd like to share?

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Contributor guide

Tech stack
None
Domain
build systemdeveloper experiencedocumentation
Issue type
documentation
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
1
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
under 1 hour
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
familiarity with Bazel .bazelrc files
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
90
Research direction
The issue points out an inconsistency between Bazel's official best practices documentation (recommending `%workspace%/user.bazelrc`) and the rules template repository (using `%workspace%/.bazelrc.user`). To resolve, investigate both sources: the Bazel documentation at https://bazel.build/configure/best practices#bazelrc file and the rules template `.bazelrc` at https://github.com/bazel contrib/rules template/blob/main/.bazelrc. Determine which filename is the intended standard and update the inconsistent file. There are no linked PRs or assignees, so this is available for a first timer.