[1] Incremental builds are especially valuable in large-scale software projects, where recompiling the entire codebase can be time-consuming and resource-intensive.
By identifying and compiling only the modified components—such as source files, libraries, or modules—the build system ensures faster iteration cycles, enabling developers to test and debug changes more efficiently.
The process relies on a dependency graph, which maps relationships between files, modules, or components in the project.
When a change is detected, the build system traverses this graph to determine which parts of the project are affected and need to be recompiled.
[4] Because of this issue, incremental builds are rarely used in continuous integration systems, where correctness is preferred to compilation speed.