https://www.qt.io/blog/building-libraries-for-harmonyos-with-vcpkg
Building C/C++ libraries for HarmonyOS with vcpkg
Summarize
Jörg Bornemann
We're currently working on porting Qt to HarmonyOS. For our CI and developer machines, we need a number of third-party libraries built for HarmonyOS. Cross-compiling open-source C and C++ libraries for this platform has been a manual, error-prone process. Each library has its own build system, whether CMake, Autotools, or Meson. Each needs individual attention to produce correct binaries for the OHOS target. We have been maintaining a hand-written shell script that builds libraries one by one, with per-library workarounds for cross-compilation quirks.
With our vcpkg fork, that script is now a single command.
Why vcpkg?
vcpkg is Microsoft's open-source C/C++ package manager. It already handles cross-compilation for Android, iOS, and other embedded targets. Adding HarmonyOS as a first-class platform means the entire vcpkg port catalog becomes available to OHOS developers without per-library build system surgery.
Qt supports building against third-party libraries provided by vcpkg since some versions, and Qt 6.11 introduces a configure option to run vcpkg in manifest mode and automatically install dependencies.
Unfortunately, vcpkg did not support HarmonyOS, but we addressed this shortcoming in our fork.
What our fork adds
The changes are small and focused. The vcpkg-tool fork (one commit) adds ohos as a recognized platform identifier. Note that for historical reasons we use OHOS as a synonym for HarmonyOS. The SDK's toolchain file does the same. The vcpkg registry fork adds:
An OHOS toolchain file that delegates to the HarmonyOS SDK's native toolchain
Three community triplets: arm64-ohos, arm-ohos, x64-ohos
Platform detection so that port expressions like "supports": "!uwp" can include or exclude OHOS
Portfile patches for libraries that need OHOS-specific adjustments (for now: libpng, fontconfig, ICU)
Getting started
Prerequisites
HarmonyOS SDK with native toolchain (API 12+)
CMake 3.20+, Ninja
Git
Step 1: Build vcpkg-tool from source
The upstream vcpkg-tool does not yet recognize OHOS, so we build from our fork:
git clone https://git.qt.io/jobor/vcpkg-tool.git -b ohos ~/vcpkg-tool
cd ~/vcpkg-tool
cmake -S . -B build -GNinja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF
ninja build
Step 2: Set up the vcpkg registry
git clone https://git.qt.io/jobor/vcpkg.git -b ohos ~/vcpkg
cd ~/vcpkg
cp ~/vcpkg-tool/build/vcpkg ./
export VCPKG_ROOT=~/vcpkg
Step 3: Set the SDK path
Depending on where you've installed the HarmonyOS command line tools:
export OHOS_SDK_ROOT=~/.local/opt/ohos/command-line-tools/sdk/default/openharmony
The directory should contain native/build/cmake/ohos.toolchain.cmake.
Step 4: Install libraries
To install the libraries into a common install root, we use vcpkg's "classic mode" (as opposed to "manifest mode"):
vcpkg install --triplet arm64-ohos libpng libjpeg-turbo ...
That is it. vcpkg resolves dependencies, downloads sources, cross-compiles everything with the OHOS toolchain, and installs headers, libraries, and CMake config files into $VCPKG_ROOT/installed/arm64-ohos.
Step 5: Use in your project
Or use vcpkg's own CMake integration:
cmake -S . -B build \
-DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=$VCPKG_ROOT/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake \
-DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET=arm64-ohos
To instruct Qt to use vcpkg, pass QT_USE_VCPKG=ON to configure. Qt's build system will automatically figure out where the vcpkg toolchain file is and use it.
Available triplets
The following triplets are available for HarmonyOS:
Triplet OHOS ABI
arm64-ohos arm64-v8a
arm-ohos armeabi-v7a
x64-ohos x86_64
All triplets produce dynamically linked libraries with unversioned sonames.
Upstreaming
We are working to upstream these changes to the official vcpkg and vcpkg-tool repositories. The goal is to provide standard community triplets, making OHOS a first-class vcpkg target alongside Android, iOS, and the other cross-compilation platforms.
Once upstreamed, no forks will be needed. A standard vcpkg installation will support OHOS out of the box.
Conclusion
Adding HarmonyOS support to vcpkg eliminates the per-library cross-compilation burden that every OHOS C/C++ developer faces today. Instead of maintaining custom build scripts for each dependency, the build recipes live in a community-maintained repository.
If you are building native libraries for HarmonyOS, give our vcpkg fork a try and let us know how it works for you.
For Chinese version, you can read this in Huawei Developer Forum.
