Zig Cross

Zig Cross-Compilation

Purpose

Guide agents through Zig's built-in cross-compilation: target triple selection, CPU feature targeting, zig cc for cross-compiling C projects, embedded bare-metal targets, and WASM output — all without requiring a system cross-toolchain.

Triggers

• "How do I cross-compile a Zig program for ARM?"
• "How do I build Zig for a different OS?"
• "How do I use Zig to cross-compile C code for another platform?"
• "How do I build Zig for embedded/bare-metal?"
• "How do I target WebAssembly with Zig?"
• "What Zig target triple do I use for Raspberry Pi?"

Workflow

1. Zig's native cross-compilation

Zig has cross-compilation built in — no cross-toolchain, no Docker, no sysroot needed for pure Zig code:

# List all supported targets
zig targets | python3 -c "import sys,json; d=json.load(sys.stdin); [print(t) for t in d['libc']]"

# Build for a specific target
zig build-exe src/main.zig -target aarch64-linux-gnu -O ReleaseFast

# With build system (pass target as option)
zig build -Dtarget=aarch64-linux-gnu -Doptimize=ReleaseFast

# Cross-compile for Windows from Linux/macOS
zig build-exe src/main.zig -target x86_64-windows-gnu