Configure Your Colcon

To improve your life, we'll setup some flags that will be used with each colcon build using mixin.

sudo apt install python3-colcon-mixin

colcon mixin add default https://raw.githubusercontent.com/colcon/colcon-mixin-repository/master/index.yaml
colcon mixin add mrs https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ctu-mrs/colcon_mixin/refs/heads/master/index.yaml
colcon mixin update

Create a config file and copy the following build flags.

cd ~/ros2_ws

touch colcon_defaults.yaml

build:
  symlink-install: True     # link configs and other files to install folder
  continue-on-error: True   # build the rest of the packages if one fails
  executor: parallel        # enable parallel package building
  parallel-workers: 4       # maximum packages build in parallel (increase if good CPU)
  mixin:
    - rel-with-deb-info     # display more info when failed
    - compile-commands      # generate compile commands

By default, colcon uses a monochromatic output that is poorly readable. To add some colors and order, install the following extenstion.

pip install git+https://github.com/cottsay/colcon-ansi-colors-example --break-system-packages

Put the build option to your ~/.bashrc (or ~/.zshrc) to use it by default.

export COLCON_DEFAULT_OUTPUT_STYLE=catkin_tools

Open a new terminal and try building your workspace again.