For API / ABI compatibility reasons, it is recommended to build and use cpu_features in a subdirectory of your project or as an embedded dependency.
This is similar to the recommended usage of the googletest framework ( https://github.com/google/googletest/blob/master/googletest/README.md )
Build and use step-by-step
1- Download cpu_features and copy it in a sub-directory in your project. or add cpu_features as a git-submodule in your project
2- You can then use the cmake command add_subdirectory() to include cpu_features directly and use the cpu_features target in your project.
3- Add the cpu_features target to the target_link_libraries() section of your executable or of your library.
CMake default options for cpu_features is Release built type with tests disabled. To enable testing set cmake BUILD_TESTING variable to ON, .travis.yml and appveyor.yml have up to date examples.