Local setup

Everything except flashing works without a board. The host checks run on macOS and Linux; the flashing scripts are written for macOS's bash 3.2 and work on Linux too.

Rust

rust-toolchain.toml pins the stable channel with the components and the target the workspace needs, so rustup installs them on first use:

rustup show          # installs stable, rust-src, rustfmt, clippy, llvm-tools, thumbv7em-none-eabihf
cargo install cargo-binutils --locked

cargo-binutils supplies rust-objcopy, which turns an ELF into the raw binary the UF2 wraps. The minimum Rust version is 1.85.

The workspace's .cargo/config.toml sets the default build target to thumbv7em-none-eabihf (the nRF52840's Cortex-M4F), so building the host crates needs the host target named. A shell alias helps:

export OXINODE_HOST="$(rustc -vV | sed -n 's/^host: //p')"
alias sim='cargo run -q -p oxinode-sim --target "$OXINODE_HOST" --'

Python

The host tools under tools/ are Python 3 with no dependencies beyond the standard library, except the flasher, which needs adafruit-nrfutil. The flash script bootstraps that into tools/.venv/ on first use if it is not on your PATH; to install it yourself:

pip install adafruit-nrfutil

Optional

• shellcheck, for the lint step over tools/*.sh. tools/test.sh skips it with a note if it is not installed.
• defmt-print, to decode the firmware's log port: cargo install defmt-print.
• MkDocs, to build this documentation locally: pip install -r docs/requirements.txt, then mkdocs serve.

A board

A muzi.works Base Duo with the Super IO expansion board, running its factory bootloader. Nothing else: no debug probe, no programmer. See Flashing.

For bench work on the radio, an RTL-SDR is enough to see a carrier and measure its frequency, and a second Base Duo (running anything, including stock Meshtastic) is enough to exercise receive. See The radio.

Verify

tools/test.sh

runs every check that does not need a board and takes a few seconds on a warm tree. See Testing.