tilelang-build

name: tilelang-build description: Repository-specific build, rebuild, install, and test instructions for tilelang. Use when working in the tilelang repository and the correct commands are needed for building from source, reinstalling after changes, or running project tests.

Build & Install

Installing / Rebuilding tilelang

The standard way to build and install:

pip install .

Or with verbose output for debugging build issues:

pip install . -v

uv pip install . also works if uv is available but is not required.

Build dependencies are declared in pyproject.toml and resolved automatically during pip install ..

If ccache is available, repeated builds only recompile changed C++ files.

Alternative: Development Build with --no-build-isolation

If you need faster iteration (e.g. calling cmake directly to recompile C++ without re-running the full pip install), install build dependencies first:

pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
pip install --no-build-isolation .

After this, you can invoke cmake --build build directly to recompile only changed C++ files. This is useful when iterating on C++ code.

Alternative: cmake + PYTHONPATH (recommended for C++ development)

For the fastest C++ iteration, bypass pip entirely and drive cmake directly:

# Configure (auto-detects CUDA; git submodules are initialised automatically)
cmake -S . -B build

# Build
cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

# Make the local tilelang package importable
export PYTHONPATH=$(pwd):$PYTHONPATH

After the initial configure, recompiling is just cmake --build build -j$(nproc). The runtime automatically discovers native libraries from build/lib/ when it detects a dev checkout (see tilelang/env.py).

Useful cmake options:

Editable Installs

Never use pip install -e . (editable install). When running Python from the repo root, the local ./tilelang directory is imported instead of the installed copy (because . is on sys.path by default). This makes editable installs unnecessary. Avoid pip install -e . as it can cause import confusion with this project's layout.

Running Tests

Most tests require a GPU.

python -m pytest testing/python/ -x

Run a specific test file or test case:

python -m pytest testing/python/language/test_tilelang_language_copy.py -x
python -m pytest testing/python/language/test_tilelang_language_copy.py -x -k "test_name"

For Metal-specific tests (requires macOS with Apple Silicon):

python -m pytest testing/python/metal/ -x