The package avro-cpp can be used from CMake via: find_path(AVROCPP_INCLUDE_DIR avro/Encoder.hh) find_library(AVROCPP_LIBRARY_DEBUG avrocpp PATH_SUFFIXES "debug/lib" REQUIRED) get_filename_component(AVROCPP_ROOT_FIND_DIR ${AVROCPP_INCLUDE_DIR} DIRECTORY) find_library(AVROCPP_LIBRARY_RELEASE avrocpp PATHS "${AVROCPP_ROOT_FIND_DIR}/lib/" REQUIRED NO_DEFAULT_PATH) target_include_directories(main PRIVATE "${AVROCPP_INCLUDE_DIR}") target_link_libraries(main PRIVATE optimized "${AVROCPP_LIBRARY_RELEASE}" debug "${AVROCPP_LIBRARY_DEBUG}")