docs/development/build/build_information.md

# Retrieve build information

Metrics and error reports are collected from devices in several ways:
Cobalt, feedback reports, crashpad crashes, manual reports from developers
and QA.  Interpreting these signals requires knowing where they are generated
from to varying levels of detail.  This document describes the places where
version information about the system are stored for use in these types of
reports.  Note that this information only applies to the base system -
dynamically or ephemerally added software will not be included here.


To view this data via the commandline, you can use `fx shell`. For example:

```sh
fx shell cat /config/build-info/latest-commit-date
```

To access this data at runtime, add the feature "build-info" to the
[component manifest][component-manifest] of the component that needs to
read these fields.  For example:

```
{% includecode gerrit_repo="fuchsia/fuchsia" gerrit_path="src/developer/feedback/crashpad_agent/tests/meta/crashpad_agent_unittest.cmx" indented_block="\"sandbox\": {" highlight="2,3" %}
```


## Product
### Location
`/config/build-info/product`

### Description
String describing the product configuration used at build time.  Defaults to the value passed as PRODUCT in fx set.
Example: “products/core.gni”, “products/workstation.gni”

## Board
### Location
`/config/build-info/board`

### Description
String describing the board configuration used at build time to specify the target hardware.  Defaults to the value passed as BOARD in fx set.
Example: “boards/x64.gni”

## Version
### Location
`/config/build-info/version`

### Description
String describing the version of the build.  Defaults to the same string used currently in ‘latest-commit-date’.  Can be overridden by build infrastructure to provide a more semantically meaningful version, e.g. to include the release train the build was produced on.

## Latest-commit-date
### Location
`/config/build-info/latest-commit-date`

### Description
String containing a timestamp of the most recent commit to the integration repository (specifically, the "CommitDate" field) formatted in strict ISO 8601 format in the UTC timezone.  Example: “2019-03-28T15:42:20+00:00”.

## Snapshot
### Location
`/config/build-info/snapshot`

### Description
Jiri snapshot of the most recent ‘jiri update’

## Kernel version

### Location
Stored in vDSO.  Accessed through [`zx_system_get_version_string`]( /docs/reference/syscalls/system_get_version_string.md)

### Description
Zircon revision computed during the kernel build process.

[component-manifest]: /docs/concepts/storage/component_manifest.md