We have found that the recent bump to rules_go v0.23.3 breaks Windows building via RBE. This is not a specific issue with rules_go, but rather a bug in Bazel/RBE (to be further determined the exact cause). We are intending to patch rules_go with a small patch in the interim while the underlying issue gets sorted out.

The failure manifests itself in Envoy as:

ERROR: C:/_eb/external/go_sdk/BUILD.bazel:43:1: GoToolchainBinaryCompile external/go_sdk/builder.exe.a failed (Exit 1): builder.exe.bat failed: error executing command 
  cd C:/_eb/execroot/envoy
  SET GOROOT=external/go_sdk
  bazel-out/host/bin/external/go_sdk/builder.exe.bat
Execution platform: @rbe_windows_msvc_cl//config:platform
'bazel-out' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
Target //source/exe:envoy-static failed to build

However, this is not an Envoy/rules_go specific issue, we have been able to reproduce this separately, see link below

Links

• rules_go PR with some description of the issue: Windows: Use actions.run and explicitly format cmd.exe .bat invocation bazel-contrib/rules_go#2542
• minimal repro of the issue and description: https://github.com/greenhouse-org/bazel-issue-repro/tree/master/ctx_actions_run_rbe