the package readline can be used under windows via: find_package(unofficial-readline-win32 CONFIG REQUIRED) target_link_libraries(main PRIVATE unofficial::readline-win32::readline) The package readline can be imported via the CMake FindPkgConfig module: find_package(PkgConfig REQUIRED) pkg_check_modules(readline REQUIRED IMPORTED_TARGET readline) target_link_libraries(main PRIVATE PkgConfig::readline)