Vulkan-Hpp

Vulkan is a low-level graphics API used to write software that talks directly to a computer's graphics card, typically for games, 3D rendering engines, or other high-performance visual applications. Working with the original Vulkan C API involves a lot of manual bookkeeping: managing memory, tracking objects, and handling errors without much help from the language itself. Vulkan-Hpp is a set of C++ header files that wrap the same underlying Vulkan API and add the conveniences C++ programmers expect.

The main improvements it provides are type safety for enums and bit flags (so the compiler catches mistakes that the C API would silently accept), support for standard library containers, exception-based error handling rather than checking return codes manually, and three families of handle types that manage object lifetimes automatically in ways similar to how C++ smart pointers work. All of this happens at compile time, so there is no additional cost when the program actually runs.

The repository itself is primarily a code generator: it reads the official Vulkan XML specification published by Khronos and produces the C++ header files from that spec. This means Vulkan-Hpp stays in sync with new Vulkan versions as the spec is updated.

Installation is straightforward. The headers are included in the LunarG Vulkan SDK, which is the recommended way to get them. They are also available through the vcpkg and Conan package managers for projects that use those tools.

The project is maintained by Khronos, the industry group that also maintains the Vulkan specification itself, and is licensed under Apache 2.0.