All protobuf support code that IO uses is generated within the project.
With 05b5e73, we committed to keeping a genproto directory in the project that is not checked in and regenerated dynamically for new repo clones and in all automated container builds.
Pros
- We have more control over what is generated.
- There is less risk of accidental breakage due to dependency drift (protos are kept in the repo).
Cons
- We're on our own.
- We have to maintain a set of source protos for Envoy and other dependencies.
- (This could be big) It is difficult to use third-party code that depends on the same protos that we do. There is a global (in-app) protobuf registry that fails hard if duplicate implementations are registered on startup.