Gantry

Gantry is a framework for bootstrapping embedded applications using the Zephyr RTOS. The architecture is event-driven and data-centric. Applications are made up of composable modules that communicate with each other via events. Modules can define custom event types and payloads, but the core event structure is universal such that any module can parse any event.

The system state, configuration, and device information is all managed by a central data storage module, the Stow. Modules, as well as connected devices, can subscribe to, set, and get items in the Stow. This data-centric approach makes it trivial for modules or devices to react to events and communicate with each other. It avoids common pitfalls where many modules define similar events or pass state via arbitrary event payloads.

What's included:

Component	Description
Stow	Central data store for device information, state, and configuration. Modules and external clients can set, get, and subscribe to items in the Stow.
Memory Management	Configurable reference-counted memory pools.
Events	Universal event format for inter-process communications.
Resource Checker	Static analysis for memory and resource leaks.
Flags	State flags for managing and monitoring module state.

Integration Quick Start

The project is meant to be included as a West module within a West workspace.

1. Include the module's repository in your West manifest then run west update.
2. Define a stow.yaml in your applications root directory.
3. Enable the desired Gantry features in your project's prj.conf.
4. Build our application and begin making use of the Gantry library.

The samples folder provides an example application using the Gantry library.

Project Structure

The project is meant to be included as a West module within a West workspace.

• docs contains project documentation.
• include and lib contain the headers and source for the Gantry library, respectively.
• samples contains example applications using the Gantry library.
• tests contains a suite of unit tests.
• tools contains useful Python utilities, code generation, and analysis tools.
• python contains an example implementation of a Stow client.

Setup

Prerequisites

• Nix with flakes enabled
• If you prefer not to use Nix, review the dependencies within the shell.nix file and install them on your system.
• Additionally, a Docker container of the environment can be built using just docker-build. This container can be leveraged to use the development environment on systems without the necessary dependencies.

Enter the development shell

nix develop

Alternatively, with direnv installed, run direnv allow to automatically enabled the environment when entering the project folder.

This project uses just to easily run commands and scripts. Run just to view available commands.

Documentation

The documentation is available at demizo.github.io/Gantry/.

To locally generate and open the HTML docs:

# Build the documentation
just docs
# Open the library documentation
just docs-open
# Open the source code documentation
just doxy-open

Initialize the Workspace

just init

To re-sync after the West manifest changes run:

just update-workspace

Building and Flashing

Build the example application for the nRF52840 DK. Gantry does not have specific hardware requirements so most 32-bit targets should work:

just build

For a pristine rebuild:

just rebuild

Flash to a connected board via OpenOCD:

just flash

Mass-erase the board:

just erase

Running Unit Tests

Run all unit tests on the native simulator:

just test-all

Run tests for a specific component:

just test stow
just test memory
...

License

Gantry is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license, see the LICENSE file for the full license text.