The latest development version of this page may be more current than this released 1.14.0 version.

Getting Started Guide

Follow this guide to set up a Zephyr development environment on your system, and then build and run a sample application.

Set Up a Development System

Follow one of the following guides for your host operating system.

• Linux
• macOS
• Windows

Get the source code

Zephyr’s multi-purpose West (Zephyr’s meta-tool) tool lets you easily get the Zephyr project source code, instead of manually cloning the Zephyr repos along with west itself.

Warning

It’s possible to use Zephyr without installing west, but you have to really know what you are doing.

Bootstrap west

First, install the west binary and bootstrapper:

# Linux
pip3 install --user west

# macOS and Windows
pip3 install west

Note

See Install Python Dependencies for additional clarfication on using the --user switch.

Clone the Zephyr Repositories

Warning

If you have run source zephyr-env.sh (on Linux or macOS) or zephyr-env.cmd (on Windows) on a clone of zephyr that predates the introduction of west, then the copy of west included in the clone will override the bootstrapper installed with pip. In that case close the shell and open a new one in order to remove it from the PATH. You can check which west is being executed by running:

west --version

You should see West bootstrapper version: v0.5.0 (or higher).

Next, clone the Zephyr source code repositories from GitHub using the west tool you just installed:

west init zephyrproject
cd zephyrproject
west update

Note

You can replace zephyrproject with the folder name of your choice. West will create the named folder if it doesn’t already exist. If no folder name is specified, west initializes the current working directory.

Note

If you had previously cloned the zephyr repository manually using Git, create an empty enclosing folder (for example zephyrproject/), and move the cloned repository into it. From the enclosing folder run:

west init -l zephyr/
west update

The -l <path to zephyr> parameter instructs west to use an existing local copy instead of cloning a remote repository. This will create a full Zephyr installation (see below).

Running west init will clone west itself into ./.west/west and initialize a local installation. Running west update will pull all the projects referenced by the manifest file (zephyr/west.yml) into the folders specified in it. See Multiple Repository Management for additional details, a list of the folders and files that west will create as part of the process, and more on how west helps manage multiple repositories.

Warning

Don’t clone Zephyr to a directory with spaces anywhere in the path. For example, on Windows, C:\Users\YourName\zephyrproject will work, but C:\Users\Your Name\zephyrproject will cause cryptic errors when you try to build an application.

Install Python Dependencies

Next, install additional Python packages required by Zephyr in a shell or cmd.exe prompt:

# Linux
pip3 install --user -r zephyr/scripts/requirements.txt

# macOS and Windows
pip3 install -r zephyr/scripts/requirements.txt

Some notes on pip’s --user option:

• Installing with --user is the default behavior on Debian-based distributions and is generally recommended on Linux to avoid conflicts with Python packages installed using the system package manager.
• On Linux, verify the Python user install directory ~/.local/bin is at the front of your PATH environment variable, otherwise installed packages won’t be found.
• On macOS, Homebrew disables the --user flag[1].
• On Windows using cmd.exe, although it’s possible to use the --user flag, it makes it harder for the command prompt to find executables installed by pip.

Set Up a Toolchain

Note

On Linux, you can skip this step if you installed the Zephyr SDK, which includes toolchains for all supported Zephyr architectures.

In some specific configurations like non-MCU x86 targets on Linux, you may be able to re-use the native development tools provided by your operating system instead of an SDK by setting ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT=host.

If you want, you can use the SDK host tools (such as OpenOCD) with a different toolchain by keeping the ZEPHYR_SDK_INSTALL_DIR environment variable set to the Zephyr SDK installation directory, while setting ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT appropriately for a non-SDK toolchain.

Zephyr binaries are compiled using software called a toolchain. You need to install and configure a toolchain to develop Zephyr applications[2].

Toolchains can be installed in different ways, including using installer programs, system package managers, or simply downloading a zip file or other archive and extracting the files somewhere on your computer. You configure the toolchain by setting the environment variable ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT to a recognized value, along with some additional variable(s) specific to that toolchain (usually, this is just one more variable which contains the path where you installed the toolchain on your file system).

Note

In previous releases of Zephyr, the ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT variable was called ZEPHYR_GCC_VARIANT.

The following toolchain installation options are available. The right choice for you depends on where you want to run Zephyr and any other requirements you may have. Check your board-level documentation if you are unsure about what choice to use.

• 3rd Party Toolchains
  • GNU ARM Embedded
  • Intel ISSM
  • Crosstool-NG
• Other Cross Compilers
• Custom CMake Toolchains

To use the same toolchain in new sessions in the future you can make sure the variables are set persistently.

On macOS and Linux, you can set the variables by putting the export lines setting environment variables in a file ~/.zephyrrc. On Windows, you can put the set lines in %userprofile%\zephyrrc.cmd. These files are used to modify your environment when you run zephyr-env.sh (Linux, macOS) and zephyr-env.cmd (Windows), which you will learn about in the next step.

Build and Run an Application

Next, build a sample Zephyr application. You can then flash and run it on real hardware using any supported host system. Depending on your operating system, you can also run it in emulation with QEMU or as a native POSIX application.

A Brief Note on the Zephyr Build System

The Zephyr build system uses CMake. CMake creates build systems in different formats, called generators. Zephyr supports the following generators:

• Unix Makefiles: Supported on UNIX-like platforms (Linux, macOS).
• Ninja: Supported on all platforms.

This documentation and Zephyr’s continuous integration system mainly use Ninja, but you should be able to use any supported generator to build Zephyr applications, both when using cmake directly or west.

Build the Application

Follow these steps to build the Hello World sample application provided with Zephyr.

As mentioned earlier, Zephyr’s build system is based on CMake. You can build an application either by using cmake directly or by using west, Zephyr’s meta-tool that is also used to manage the repositories. You can find additional information about west’s build capabilities in Building, Flashing and Debugging.

Zephyr applications have to be configured and built to run on some hardware configuration, which is called a “board”[3]. These steps show how to build the Hello World application for the reel board board. You can build for a different board by changing reel_board to another supported value. See Supported Boards for more information, or use the usage build target from an initialized build directory to get a list.

Note

If you want to re-use your existing build directory to build for another board, you must delete that directory’s contents first by using the pristine build target.

1. Navigate to the main project directory:

   cd zephyrproject/zephyr
   

2. Set up your build environment:

   # On Linux/macOS
   source zephyr-env.sh
   # On Windows
   zephyr-env.cmd
   

3. Build the Hello World sample for the reel_board:

   Using west:

   west build -b reel_board samples/hello_world
   

   Using CMake and ninja:

   # On Linux/macOS
   cd samples/hello_world
   mkdir build && cd build
   
   # On Windows
   cd samples\hello_world
   mkdir build & cd build
   
   # Use cmake to configure a Ninja-based build system:
   cmake -GNinja -DBOARD=reel_board ..
   
   # Now run ninja on the generated build system:
   ninja
   

   On Linux/macOS you can also use cmake to build with make instead of ninja:

   cd samples/hello_world
   mkdir build && cd build
   
   # Use cmake to configure a Make-based build system:
   cmake -DBOARD=reel_board ..
   
   # Now run make on the generated build system:
   make
   

The main build products are in samples/hello_world/build/zephyr. The final application binary in ELF format is named zephyr.elf by default. Other binary formats and byproducts such as disassembly and map files will be present depending on the target and build system configuration.

Other sample projects demonstrating Zephyr’s features are located in samples and are documented in Samples and Demos.

Run the Application by Flashing to a Board

Most “real hardware” boards supported by Zephyr can be flashed by running west flash or ninja flash from the build directory. However, this may require board-specific tool installation and configuration to work properly.

See Run an Application in the Application Development Primer and the documentation provided with your board at Supported Boards for additional details if you get an error.

Run the Application in QEMU

On Linux and macOS, you can run Zephyr applications in emulation on your host system using QEMU when targeting either the X86 or ARM Cortex-M3 architectures.

To build and run Hello World using the x86 emulation board configuration (qemu_x86), type:

Using west:

west build -b qemu_x86 samples/hello_world
west build -t run

Using CMake and ninja:

cd $ZEPHYR_BASE/samples/hello_world
mkdir build && cd build

# Use cmake to configure a Ninja-based build system:
cmake -GNinja -DBOARD=qemu_x86 ..

# Now run ninja on the generated build system:
ninja
ninja run

To exit, type Ctrl-a, then x.

Use the qemu_cortex_m3 board configuration to run on an emulated Arm Cortex-M3.

Run a Sample Application natively (POSIX OS)

Finally, it is also possible to compile some samples to run as native processes on a POSIX OS. This is currently only tested on Linux hosts.

On 64 bit host operating systems, you will also need a 32 bit C library installed. See the Native POSIX execution (native_posix) section on host dependencies for more information.

To compile and run Hello World in this way, type:

Using west:

west build -b native_posix samples/hello_world

Using CMake and ninja:

cd $ZEPHYR_BASE/samples/hello_world
mkdir build && cd build

# Use cmake to configure a Ninja-based build system:
cmake -GNinja -DBOARD=native_posix ..

# Now run ninja on the generated build system:
ninja

and then:

# With west
west build -t run

# With ninja
ninja run

# or just:
zephyr/zephyr.exe
# Press Ctrl+C to exit

You can run zephyr/zephyr.exe --help to get a list of available options. See the Native POSIX execution (native_posix) document for more information.

This executable can be instrumented using standard tools, such as gdb or valgrind.

Footnotes

[1]	For details, see https://docs.brew.sh/Homebrew-and-Python#note-on-pip-install—user.

[2]

Usually, the toolchain is a cross-compiler and related tools which are different than the host compilers and other programs available for developing software to run natively on your operating system. One exception is when building Zephyr as a host binary to run on a POSIX operating system. In this case, you still need to set up a toolchain, but it will provide host compilers instead of cross compilers. For details on this option, see Native POSIX execution (native_posix).

[3]

This has become something of a misnomer over time. While the target can be, and often is, a microprocessor running on its own dedicated hardware board, Zephyr also supports using QEMU to run targets built for other architectures in emulation, targets which produce native host system binaries that implement Zephyr’s driver interfaces with POSIX APIs, and even running different Zephyr-based binaries on CPU cores of differing architectures on the same physical chip. Each of these hardware configurations is called a “board,” even though that doesn’t always make perfect sense in context.