Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 15, 2026

Premake

Premake is a software development tool for generating build configuration files for platform specific build tools based on configuration files that are platform agnostic. The tool is open-source.

Last revised
Jun 15, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
Length
199 w
Citations
5
Source
Premake
Original authorJason Perkins
Stable release
4.31 / 16 November 2010 (16 November 2010)
Preview release
5.0.0-beta42 / 30 December 2024 (30 December 2024)
Written inC, Lua
Typebuild automation tool
License3-clause BSD License3
Websitepremake.github.io Edit this on Wikidata
Repository

Premake is a software development tool for generating build configuration files for platform specific build tools based on configuration files that are platform agnostic. The tool is open-source.

Features

Notable features include:4

Examples

The following is an example premake configuration file.

solution "MySolution"
  configurations { "Debug", "Release" }

project "MyProject"
  kind "ConsoleApp"
  language "C++"
  includedirs { "include" }
  files { "src/**.h", "src/**.cpp" }

  configuration "Debug"
    symbols "On"
    defines { "_DEBUG" }

  configuration "Release"
    flags { "Optimize" }
    defines { "NDEBUG" }

Notable uses

Projects that use Premake include: 0 A.D., Bullet, Open Dynamics Engine, VDrift, and wxFormBuilder,5

References

References

  1. "4.3". 16 November 2010. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
  2. "Premake 5.0-beta4". 30 December 2024. Retrieved 2 January 2025.
  3. "premake-core/LICENSE.txt". Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  4. "What is Premake?". premake.github.io. Retrieved 2025-01-29.
  5. "Showcase". premake.github.io. Retrieved 2025-01-29.
External links