zmk/docs/docs/dev-setup.md

id	title	sidebar_label
dev-setup	Basic Setup	Basic Setup

Prerequisites

A unix-like environment with the following base packages installed:

• Git
• Python 3
• pip
• wget
• devicetree compiler
• CMake
• dfu-util
• Various build essentials, e.g. gcc, automake, autoconf

Debian/Ubuntu

On Debian and Ubuntu, we'll use apt to install our base dependencies:

Apt Update

First, if you haven't updated recently, or if this is a new install from WSL, you should update to get the latest package information:

sudo apt update

Install Dependencies

With the latest package information, you can now install the base dependencies:

sudo apt install -y \
	git \
	wget \
	autoconf \
	automake \
	build-essential \
	ccache \
	device-tree-compiler \
	dfu-util \
	g++ \
	gcc \
	libtool \
	make \
	ninja-build \
	cmake \
	python3-dev \
	python3-pip \
	python3-setuptools \
	xz-utils

:::note Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release packages a version of CMake that is too old. Please upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS or download and install CMake version 3.13.1 or newer manually. :::

Fedora

TODO

macOS

TODO

WSL

Windows Subsystem for Linux can use various Linux distributions. Find a WSL installation on the Windows Store.

After installing your preferred flavor, follow the directions above on Debian/Ubuntu or Fedora.

:::note On WSL2 don't put the project files into /mnt/c/ as file I/O speeds are extremely slow. Instead, run everything in the Linux system and use cp to move files over to /mnt/c/ as needed. :::

Setup

West Build Command

west is the Zephyr™ meta-tool used to configure and build Zephyr™ applications. It can be installed by using the pip python package manager:

pip3 install --user west

:::note If you don't already have it configured, you may need to update your PATH to include the pip install path. See User Installs and Stack Overflow for more details. :::

Zephyr™ ARM SDK

To build firmwares for the ARM architecture (all supported MCUs/keyboards at this point), you'll need to install the Zephyr™ ARM SDK to your system:

export ZSDK_VERSION=0.11.2
wget -q "https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/sdk-ng/releases/download/v${ZSDK_VERSION}/zephyr-toolchain-arm-${ZSDK_VERSION}-setup.run" && \
	sh "zephyr-toolchain-arm-${ZSDK_VERSION}-setup.run" --quiet -- -d ~/.local/zephyr-sdk-${ZSDK_VERSION} && \
	rm "zephyr-toolchain-arm-${ZSDK_VERSION}-setup.run"

The installation will prompt with several questions about installation location, and creating a default ~/.zephyrrc for you with various variables. The defaults shouldn normally work as expected.

Source Code

Next, you'll need to clone the ZMK source repository if you haven't already:

git clone https://github.com/zmkfirmware/zmk.git

Initialize & Update Zephyr Workspace

Since ZMK is built as a Zephyr™ application, the next step is to use west to initialize and update your workspace. The ZMK Zephyr™ application is in the app/ source directory:

Step into the repository

cd zmk

Initialize West

west init -l app/

:::note If you encounter errors like command not found: west then your PATH environment variable is likely missing the Python 3 user packages directory. See the West Build Command section again for links to how to do this :::

Update To Fetch Modules

west update

Export Zephyr™ Core

west zephyr-export

Install Zephyr Python Dependencies

pip3 install --user -r zephyr/scripts/requirements-base.txt

Environment Variables

By default, the Zephyr™ SDK will create a file named ~/.zephyrrc with the correct environment variables to build ZMK. We suggest two main options for how to load those settings.

Per Shell

To load the Zephyr environment properly for just one transient shell, run the following from your ZMK checkout directory:

source zephyr/zephyr-env.sh

All Shells

To load the environment variables for your shell every time, append the existing ~/.zephyrrc file to your shell's RC file and then start a new shell.

Bash

cat ~/.zephyrrc >> ~/.bashrc

ZSH

cat ~/.zephyrrc >> ~/.zshrc

Build

From here on, building and flashing ZMK should all be done from the app/ subdirectory of the ZMK checkout:

cd app

To build for your particular keyboard, the behaviour varies slightly depending on if you are building for a keyboard with an onboard MCU, or one that uses a MCU board addon.

Keyboard (Shield) + MCU Board

ZMK treats keyboards that take a MCU addon board as shields, and treats the smaller MCU board as the true board

Given the following:

• MCU Board: Proton-C
• Keyboard PCB: kyria
• Keymap: default

You can build ZMK with the following:

west build -b proton_c -- -DSHIELD=kyria -DKEYMAP=default

Keyboard With Onboard MCU

Keyboards with onboard MCU chips are simply treated as the board as far as Zephyr™ is concerned.

Given the following:

• Keyboard: Planck
• Keymap: default

you can build ZMK with the following:

west build -b planck -- -DKEYMAP=default

Flashing

Once built, the previously supplied parameters will be remember, so you can simply run the following to flash your board, with it in bootloader mode:

west flash