Proposal: rules_toolchains - rules for toolchain configurability

[Matt Stark]

Hi rules-authors SIG (and interested parties)

At bazelcon last year @Armando Montanez and I presented our work to make C++ toolchains configurable via bazel rules instead of via starlark. Recently, I implemented a more generic form of this which isn't limited to C++, but can work for any language.

I wrote a document on why I believe we need this here, including a bit of an explanation of the proposed solution. I haven't yet submitted my code, but the PR is complete (I'd like reviews before submitting it though) .

I believe that something like this is the future of toolchain configurability, and I'd like buy-in from the rules authors SIG, so I was hoping to get a few questions answered:

• Could I get some sort of design review from interested parties who have opinions on the matter?
• What's the process for getting this into bazel-contrib instead of my own personal repo?
• What's the process for passing ownership of this onto the SIG as a whole (once it's ready for that), with me as one owner rather than the owner?
• What are the steps required to get it to the point where this SIG recommends using it?

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Thanks, Matt.