CLion
 
2025.1
Shortcuts: Windows
Get CLion
Join the CLion Early Access Program and try out new features before they are released! Find out more

Toolchains

Last modified: 23 January 2025

Settings | Build, Execution, Deployment | Toolchains

For CMake, Makefile, and compilation database projects in CLion, a toolchain is a set of all the necessary tools required for building and running your application: the CMake executable (CMake projects), the build tool, the C/C++ compilers, the debugger binary, and the working environment.

When you start working with CLion, you already have a default toolchain available. Although you can use it in development, you may also want to adjust the set of tools for the needs of your project (for example, switch to another compiler).

tip

You can have multiple toolchains for one project and switch between them when needed.

Select the kind of project you are working with to learn more:

Create a toolchain

  1. Go to Settings | Build, Execution, Deployment | Toolchains and click to add a new toolchain.

    Watch this video for an overview of Windows toolchain options:

    Select one of the pre-defined toolchain setups (MinGW, Cygwin, Visual Studio, or WSL), Remote Host, Docker) or configure a custom toolchain (System):

    Windows toolchain options

    tip

  2. To initialize the toolchain environment via a script, click Add environment and specify the path to the file. See below for more information.

  3. If required, switch from the bundled CMake to a custom CMake installation of your choice.

  4. By default, CLion will use bundled Ninja as the Build Tool. You can specify another build tool of your choice, for example, make.

  5. CLion will attempt to detect the C/C++ compilers.

    If you prefer to use custom compilers instead of the detected ones, provide the paths in C Compiler and C++ Compiler. See Switching compilers.

    note

    If you are using the GNU ARM toolchain, make sure it's presented in your system PATH (refer to Embedded development: toolchains and compilers).

    For the IAR toolchain, specify the compilers as described in IAR toolchain.

  6. Select the Debugger.

    On macOS, you can switch between the bundled LLDB (version 19.1.3) and custom GDB.

    On Windows, the options include the bundled GDB (version 15.2), custom GDB, and LLDB (version 9.0.0) for MSVC.

    Note that custom LLDB is not currently supported.

  7. CLion verifies your choices and notifies you if any of the tools or packages are missing.

  8. When the configuration is completed, click OK to save it.

Initializing the toolchain environment via a script

Instead of setting the environment manually, you can point CLion to an environment file — a shell script that initializes the environment for your project. This is helpful, for example, when you need to initialize compiler variables, add custom ones, or modify the PATH.

The following environment files are supported:

  • Windows MinGW and MSVC toolchains — bat files.

  • Windows Cygwin, Local Linux/macOS, WSL, Docker, and Remote toolchains — shell files.

    tip

    See Set the fallback shell .

Most frameworks include environment scripts, which you can use right away. See the example of ESP-IDF on macOS. You can also create your own script, for example, when you need to source several environment files: see the example of ESP-IDF on Windows.

note

  • Toolchain environment affects all steps performed with that particular toolchain, which includes CMake generation, build, and binary launch.

  • For all toolchains except Docker, environment sourcing only happens once: the first time the toolchain in used in a CMake profile or upon loading a Makefile. For Docker, sourcing happens each time the toolchain is used.

  • When you make changes to the environment file, CLion re-sources it automatically by default. You can prevent the environment state from being automatically cached by unchecking the Cache environment from environment file based on file modified timestamps option in Settings | Advanced settings. Also, note that resetting CMake invalidates the environment file cache.

Set the fallback shell 

  • To source the environment file on Linux (local or remote), WSL, and Docker, CLion invokes source or . in default login shell as set in the $SHELL variable.

    If $SHELL is empty, CLion uses the shell specified in the Fallback shell for sourcing the environment field of the Advanced settings.

See also

Procedures

Reference