To use the script, you must have a file in your home directory called .kdesrc-buildrc, which describes the modules you would like to download and build, and any options or configuration parameters to use for these modules. The configuration file starts with the global options, specified like the following: global option-name option-value [...] end global It is then followed by one or more module sections, specified in one of the following two forms: module module-name option-name option-value [...] end module module-set module-set-name repository kde-projects or git://host.org/path/to/repo.git use-modules module-names # Other options may also be set option-name option-value [...] end module-set Note that the second form, module sets, only works for Git-based modules. For Git modules, module-name must be a module from the &kde; &git; repository (for example, kdeartwork or kde-wallpapers). For Git modules, the module name can be essentially whatever you'd like, as long as it does not duplicate any other module name in the configuration. Keep in mind the source and build directory layout will be based on the module name if you do not use the dest-dir option. However, for Git module sets the module-names must correspond with actual git modules in the chosen repository. See git-repository-base or use-modules for more information. In general, the entire line contents after the option-name is used as the option-value. One modification that &kdesrc-build; performs is that a sequence "${name-of-option}" is replaced with the value of that option from the global configuration. This allows you to reference the value of existing options, including options already set by &kdesrc-build;. To see an example of this in use, see . You can also introduce your own non-standard global variables for referencing them further in the config. To do this, your option name should be prepended with underscore symbol. Example: global _ver 6 # ← your custom variable (starting with underscore) _kde ~/kde${_ver} # ← custom variable can contain another defined variable source-dir ${_kde}/src # ← note that nested variable (_kde → _ver) is also resolved end global options kdepim log-dir /custom/path/logs${_ver} # ← you can use custom variable just like a standard end options There is a final type of configuration file entry, options groups, which may be given wherever a module or module-set may be used. options module-name option-name option-value [...] end options An options group may have options set for it just like a module declaration, and is associated with an existing module. Any options set these way will be used to override options set for the associated module. The associated module name must match the name given in the options declaration. Be careful of mis-typing the name. This is useful to allow for declaring an entire module-set worth of modules, all using the same options, and then using options groups to make individual changes. options groups can also apply to named module sets. This allows expert users to use a common configuration file (which includes module-set declarations) as a baseline, and then make changes to the options used by those module-sets in configuration files that use the include command to reference the base configuration. In this example we choose to build all modules from the &kde; multimedia software grouping. However we want to use a different version of the &kmix; application (perhaps for testing a bug fix). It works as follows: module-set kde-multimedia-set repository kde-projects use-modules kde/kdemultimedia branch master end module-set # kmix is a part of kde/kdemultimedia group, even though we never named # kmix earlier in this file, &kdesrc-build; will figure out the change. options kmix branch KDE/4.12 end options Now when you run &kdesrc-build;, all of the &kde; multimedia programs will be built from the master branch of the source repository, but &kmix; will be built from the older KDE/4.12 branch. By using options you didn't have to individually list all the other &kde; multimedia programs to give them the right branch option. Note that this feature is only available in &kdesrc-build; from version 1.16, or using the development version of &kdesrc-build; after 2014-01-12. Within the configuration file, you may reference other files by using the include keyword with a file, which will act as if the file referenced had been inserted into the configuration file at that point. For example, you could have something like this: global include ~/common-kdesrc-build-options # Insert specific options here. end global If you don't specify the full path to the file to include, then the file will be searched for starting from the directory containing the source file. This works recursively as well. You can use variables in the value of include instruction: global _ver 6 source-dir ~/kde${_ver}/src ... persistent-data-file ~/kde${_ver}/persistent-options.json end global include ~/kde6/src/kdesrc-build/data/build-include/kf${_ver}-qt${_ver}.ksb The following is a list of commonly-used options. Click on the option to find out more about it. To see the full list of options, see . cmake-options to define what flags to configure a module with using &cmake;. branch, to checkout from a branch instead of master. configure-flags to define what flags to configure &Qt; with. install-dir, to set the directory to install &kde; to. make-options, to pass options to the &make; program (such as number of CPUs to use). qt-install-dir, to set the directory to install &Qt; to. source-dir, to change where to download the source code to. &conf-options-table;