tracing: add append-only proto encoding for v2 writers

Protozero backfills a nested message's four-byte length when the message
closes. That is illegal on the v2 ring, where the bytes in front of it
may already have been taken by the reader. This adds a second
nested-message framing that never writes a length ahead of its payload,
and the pass that turns it back into ordinary protobuf.

- The framing opens a nested field with varint((f << 3) | 3) and closes
  it with the bare byte 0x04. The terminator carries no field id, so
  this is not group encoding and a field-numbered end-group tag is
  rejected. A root emits neither wrapper nor terminator.
- protozero::NestedMessageEncoding is chosen once at Reset() and
  inherited by every child. The two-argument Reset() stays the default
  and stays out-of-line, so the exported symbol still resolves for
  anything already linked. A value outside the enum is rejected there.
- The C runtime emits the same bytes. struct PerfettoPbMsg keeps its
  public layout by putting the mode and finalized bits in the top two
  bits of `size`. They are set only in the new mode, so `size` on the
  existing path is what it always was, before and after Finalize().
- Both C ABI boundaries abort on an encoding they do not recognise
  rather than guessing v1 framing, and the legacy packet factory CHECKs
  that the root is length-delimited.
- RewriteToLengthDelimitedProto() converts a reassembled packet back,
  with bounds checks and a cleared output on every failure: these bytes
  become untrusted input once the consumer moves into traced.
- TraceWriterV2 gives protozero one fragment at a time. When a packet
  outgrows its chunk it publishes with "continues on next chunk",
  notifies the delegate, and only then asks for the next chunk; it also
  notifies when an acquisition burned positions. Both matter for a
  packet larger than the ring, where nothing else gives the reader a
  reason to run before the writer needs the capacity back.

Not wired up: no bridge, no muxer, no flag.

Tests: exact byte vectors for both modes in C++ and C, C/C++ parity, the
public struct's layout and raw `size` against a legacy mirror, a death
test for an unknown encoding, the rewriter's rejection cases, and
TraceWriterV2 through the ring and the rewriter - including a packet
several times larger than the whole ring and a stalling writer
recovering from chunks it could not claim.

Bug: 536851377
23 files changed
tree: 3ff1e8d21bfa81f4181515538c841a8329e5f6b0
  1. .github/
  2. ai/
  3. bazel/
  4. build_overrides/
  5. buildtools/
  6. contrib/
  7. docs/
  8. examples/
  9. gn/
  10. include/
  11. infra/
  12. protos/
  13. python/
  14. sdk/
  15. src/
  16. test/
  17. third_party/
  18. tools/
  19. ui/
  20. .bazelignore
  21. .bazelrc
  22. .bazelversion
  23. .clang-format
  24. .clang-tidy
  25. .git-blame-ignore-revs
  26. .gitallowed
  27. .gitattributes
  28. .gitignore
  29. .gn
  30. .style.yapf
  31. Android.bp
  32. Android.bp.extras
  33. BUILD
  34. BUILD.extras
  35. BUILD.gn
  36. CHANGELOG
  37. CONTRIBUTORS.txt
  38. DIR_METADATA
  39. heapprofd.rc
  40. LICENSE
  41. meson.build
  42. METADATA
  43. MODULE.bazel
  44. MODULE.bazel.lock
  45. MODULE_LICENSE_APACHE2
  46. OWNERS
  47. OWNERS.github
  48. perfetto.rc
  49. perfetto_flags.aconfig
  50. PerfettoIntegrationTests.xml
  51. persistent_cfg.pbtxt
  52. README.chromium
  53. README.md
  54. TEST_MAPPING
  55. traced_perf.rc
  56. WORKSPACE
README.md

Perfetto - System profiling, app tracing and trace analysis

Perfetto is an open-source suite of SDKs, daemons and tools which use tracing to help developers understand the behaviour of complex systems and root-cause functional and performance issues on client and embedded systems.

It is a production-grade tool that is the default tracing system for the Android operating system and the Chromium browser.

Core Components

Perfetto is not a single tool, but a collection of components that work together:

  • High-performance tracing daemons: For capturing tracing information from many processes on a single machine into a unified trace file.
  • Low-overhead tracing SDK: A C++17 library for direct userspace-to-userspace tracing of timings and state changes in your application.
  • Extensive OS-level probes: For capturing system-wide context on Android and Linux (e.g. scheduling states, CPU frequencies, memory profiling, callstack sampling).
  • Browser-based UI: A powerful, fully local UI for visualizing and exploring large, multi-GB traces on a timeline. It works in all major browsers, requires no installation, and can open traces from other tools.
  • SQL-based analysis library: A powerful engine that allows you to programmatically query traces using SQL to automate analysis and extract custom metrics.

Why Use Perfetto?

Perfetto was designed to be a versatile and powerful tracing system for a wide range of use cases.

  • For Android App & Platform Developers: Debug and root-cause functional and performance issues like slow startups, dropped frames (jank), animation glitches, low memory kills, and ANRs. Profile both Java/Kotlin and native C++ memory usage with heap dumps and profiles.
  • For C/C++ Developers (Linux, macOS, Windows): Use the Tracing SDK to instrument your application with custom trace points to understand its execution flow, find performance bottlenecks, and debug complex behavior. On Linux, you can also perform detailed CPU and native heap profiling.
  • For Linux Kernel & System Developers: Get deep insights into kernel behavior. Perfetto acts as an efficient userspace daemon for ftrace, allowing you to visualize scheduling, syscalls, interrupts, and custom kernel tracepoints on a timeline.
  • For Chromium Developers: Perfetto is the tracing backend for chrome://tracing. Use it to debug and root-cause issues in the browser, V8, and Blink.
  • For Performance Engineers & SREs: Analyze and visualize a wide range of profiling and tracing formats, not just Perfetto's. Use the powerful SQL interface to programmatically analyze traces from tools like Linux perf, macOS Instruments, Chrome JSON traces, and more.

Getting Started

We‘ve designed our documentation to guide you to the right information as quickly as possible, whether you’re a newcomer to performance analysis or an experienced developer.

  1. New to tracing? If you're unfamiliar with concepts like tracing and profiling, start here:

  2. Ready to dive in? Our “Getting Started” guide is the main entry point for all users. It will help you find the right tutorials and documentation for your specific needs:

  3. Want the full overview? For a comprehensive look at what Perfetto is, why it's useful, and who uses it, see our main documentation page:

Debian Distribution

For users interested in the Debian distribution of Perfetto, the official source of truth and packaging efforts are maintained at Debian Perfetto Salsa Repository

Community & Support

Have questions? Need help?

We follow Google's Open Source Community Guidelines.