It is not possible to set Starlark defined command line flags that come from a different repository

[aiuto]

This is best shown with a reproducible example.

From within the Bazel source code, this works.
build --//tools/build_defs/pkg:incompatible_no_build_defs_pkg

From a different repository (for example, one where we want to run CI with all incompatible flags set), //tools/build_defs does not exist, so we have to refer to it via the repository name bazel exports:
build --@bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/pkg:incompatible_no_build_defs_pkg

Alas, that does not parse, either in bazel sources or in other repositories.

The severity of the issue is that owners of rule sets are unable to make an incompatible flag change that their downstream users can test.

[katre]

I don't know what is intended here, so leaving this for @gregestren to set type and priority levels.

[gregestren]

Is this solved by #10039?

[gregestren]

Let's consolidate these bugs into #11128.

When that one is fixed, it if doesn't address this we can re-open this.

[juliexxia]

I just confirmed that this seems to be fixed by #10039

Random repo I used was

$ git clone git clone https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_go
$ bazel build :default_nogo --@io_bazel_rules_go//go/config:incompatible_package_conflict_is_error=True