This directory is used as the local cache for third-party libraries needed by the static build tooling.

build_libs_xmlsec.py and LibXmlsecDependencyBuilder look in libs/ first. If a matching archive is already present here, that file is reused. If not, the build tooling downloads the archive into this directory and then continues.

The default lookup path is:

libs/

You can override it with either:

python build_libs_xmlsec.py --libs-dir /path/to/cache

or:

export PYXMLSEC_LIBS_DIR=/path/to/cache

Store downloaded source or binary archives here, for example:

• openssl*.tar.gz
• zlib*.tar.gz
• libiconv*.tar.gz
• libxml2*.tar.xz
• libxslt*.tar.xz
• xmlsec1*.tar.gz
• Windows binary archives such as libxml2-<version>.<suffix>.zip

Extracted build artifacts do not belong in this directory. Those are created under build/tmp/libs/.

• Speeds up local rebuilds by reusing previously downloaded archives.
• Matches the CI cache strategy in .github/workflows/cache_libs.yml.
• Makes it possible to pre-populate dependency archives for offline or repeatable builds.