Dependencies

TiDB is built on Go (currently go 1.25.9 per go.mod) plus a substantial set of third-party libraries. This page lists the most architecturally significant ones; the full list is in go.mod (~376 lines).

TiDB-family ("PingCAP/TiKV") dependencies

These are the closest neighbours — companion projects whose evolution moves in lockstep with TiDB:

Module	Purpose
github.com/tikv/client-go/v2	Go client for TiKV: 2PC, region cache, txn modes, snapshot reads. The single most important external dependency for the storage path.
github.com/tikv/pd/client	PD client: TSO, region routing, cluster membership.
github.com/pingcap/kvproto	gRPC protobuf definitions shared with TiKV/PD/TiFlash.
github.com/pingcap/tipb	Protobuf for the coprocessor and DAG protocol.
github.com/pingcap/errors	Errors with stack and context. Used everywhere.
github.com/pingcap/failpoint	Compile-time failpoints. Test-only in production builds.
github.com/pingcap/log	Wrapped Zap with project conventions.
github.com/pingcap/sysutil	System-info helpers.
github.com/pingcap/badger	Embedded BadgerDB used by unistore.
github.com/pingcap/fn	Light functional helpers.
github.com/pingcap/metering_sdk	Cloud metering SDK (used by some BR/Lightning paths).

pkg/parser is a separate Go module inside this repo (pkg/parser/go.mod). The top-level go.mod includes it as a replace directive.

Cloud SDKs

TiDB integrates directly with cloud storage for backups, log backups, and Lightning imports:

• AWS: aws-sdk-go-v2/... (config, credentials, kms, s3, sts, ec2, cloudwatch, …).
• Azure: Azure/azure-sdk-for-go/sdk/azcore, azidentity, azblob.
• GCP: cloud.google.com/go/kms, cloud.google.com/go/storage.
• Aliyun OSS: aliyun/alibaba-cloud-sdk-go, aliyun/alibabacloud-oss-go-sdk-v2, aliyun/credentials-go, alibabacloud-go/tea.

Encryption is centralised in br/pkg/encryption/ with KMS bridges to AWS/Azure/GCP.

Storage and cache

• github.com/cockroachdb/pebble — in-process LSM-style storage used by some test fixtures.
• github.com/coocood/freecache — high-performance cache (statement cache, etc.).
• github.com/dgraph-io/ristretto — concurrent LRU cache.
• github.com/jellydator/ttlcache/v3 — TTL caches.
• github.com/google/btree — in-memory btree.

SQL / parser tooling

• github.com/YangKeao/go-mysql-driver — MySQL client driver fork used in tests and for some internal connections (Dumpling, BR glue).
• github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql — upstream Go MySQL driver (for tooling and tests).
• gorm.io/gorm, gorm.io/driver/mysql — used by some tools and a few tests.

Observability

• github.com/prometheus/client_golang — exporter library.
• github.com/prometheus/client_model, prometheus/common — protobuf and helpers.
• github.com/grafana/pyroscope-go — continuous profiling integration (opt-in).
• github.com/uber/jaeger-client-go, github.com/opentracing/... — distributed tracing.
• go.opencensus.io — legacy stats collection.

Cluster coordination

• go.etcd.io/etcd/... — etcd v3 client (used for DDL owner election, schema versioning, sysvar propagation).
• github.com/soheilhy/cmux — connection multiplexer for the server.

CLI / app tooling

• github.com/spf13/cobra, spf13/pflag — CLI framework for tidb-server, BR, Lightning, Dumpling.
• github.com/spf13/afero — virtual file system abstraction.
• github.com/cheggaaa/pb/v3, github.com/vbauerster/mpb/v7 — progress bars.
• github.com/jedib0t/go-pretty/v6 — table renderer.
• github.com/cheynewallace/tabby — tabular output.
• github.com/fatih/color — colored output.

Crypto / auth

• github.com/lestrrat-go/jwx/v2 — JWT.
• github.com/go-ldap/ldap/v3 — LDAP auth.
• golang.org/x/oauth2 — OAuth flows.

Lint / dev tooling (build-time)

• github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/v2 — main linter.
• github.com/mgechev/revive — repo-defined linter (configured in tools/check/revive.toml).
• github.com/bazelbuild/buildtools, bazelbuild/rules_go — Bazel toolchain.
• honnef.co/go/tools — staticcheck.
• github.com/timakin/bodyclose, gostaticanalysis/forcetypeassert, nishanths/predeclared, kisielk/errcheck, … — assorted Go analysers.

Notable other dependencies

• github.com/apache/arrow-go/v18 — Apache Arrow integration (TiFlash interop, parquet support).
• github.com/apache/skywalking-eyes — license header checker.
• github.com/bits-and-blooms/bitset — bitsets used in the planner and statistics.
• github.com/twmb/murmur3 — hash function used widely.
• github.com/dgryski/go-farm — FarmHash for stable hashing.
• github.com/openai/openai-go — OpenAI client (used by tests/llmtest/).
• github.com/cloudfoundry/gosigar — system resource info (CPU, memory, disk).
• github.com/sasha-s/go-deadlock — sync.Mutex deadlock detector enabled by -tags=deadlock.

The complete list lives in go.mod. Updating any pingcap/tikv-family dependency typically requires make bazel_prepare afterwards because Bazel BUILD files reference the module versions.