Quick Start

This page introduces key EmbedOps concepts designed to enhance your embedded development workflow.

You will learn how to:

• Connect your repository to the EmbedOps platform
• Use embedded focus templates to:
  • Add build environments
  • Add static code analysis
• Analyze ELF files
• Use Dev Containers with your Continuous Integration (CI) provider

1. Sign up for a free account

Head to the EmbedOps Sign Up Page for a free account. This is required for the rest of the Quick Start to work. During the sign-up process, you should receive an email asking you to verify your address.

2. Install Docker runtime dependency

Some EmbedOps Features depend on Dev Containers which require a running Docker runtime on your machine. You can install Docker Desktop for your OS, provided your organization meets the free license criteria, or you can install Docker alternatives.

3. Install EmbedOps CLI (eo)

You can install the CLI with the following commands:

mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
cd /usr/local
curl -fsSL https://gitlab.com/embedops-public/embedops-cli/-/raw/main/install.sh | sh

If /usr/local needs elavated privileges, add sudo in front of sh

... | sudo sh

Validate that everything is working by running:

eo

You should see output similar to:

$ eo
EmbedOps CLI

Usage:
  eo [flags]
  eo [command]

Available Commands:
...

Check the version you have installed:

eo version

For more details, see Installing.

4. Log In with eo

To run the commands in this Quick Start, you first need to log in to EmbedOps via the CLI:

eo login

This command attempts to open a browser, prompting you to sign in with the account you created earlier. If you are already signed in, the browser should close automatically after retrieving your credentials.

5. Pick an existing repo

EmbedOps supports popular embedded firmware development stacks (with more to come!). For this Quick Start, we recommend forking the STM32 Quick Start project. Forking the project into your own user or organization group within your Git provider is highly recommended so that you can push changes and validate the CI pipeline examples in this Quick Start.

6. Connect your repo to the platform

After forking the repo, connect it to the platform by running:

eo init

in the root of the repository.

If you run this immediately after signing up, you should see output similar to:

$ eo init
Git repo detected: git@gitlab.com:dojofive/embedops/stm32-beta.git
No matching EmbedOps Repo found.
Project "Trial Project" (fa164db8-833c-49ff-87b3-fdf36ecffb0d) picked.
New repo info: Repo name: stm32-beta, Default branch: main, Provider: gitlab
EmbedOps Repo "stm32-beta" w/ id: 5a107a5c-95d4-4948-9ca5-3affaf931dcb created successfully.

Repo "stm32-beta" initialized.
Don't forget to push .embedops/repo_id.yml to the repo!

Once this step completes, create an initial Dev Container and CI setup by running:

eo add init

Warning

Future versions of EmbedOps may merge the functionality of eo add init into eo init, removing the need for a separate command.

Below is a GIF demonstrating the terminal output:

7. Apply templates

EmbedOps includes a collection of templates that you can apply to your project. These templates help you quickly set up a Dev Container for specific build environments or tools.

7a. Add a container build environment

Run the following command to add a Dev Container with an ARM bare-metal GCC build environment:

eo add arm-none-gcc-build

The command prompts you for details to help tailor the template. Below is a GIF demonstrating the terminal output:

After running the command, you should have:

• A Dev Container with a build environment you can commit to version control for others to use
  • The EmbedOps CLI (eo) is installed inside the container, along with extra configuration to connect eo credentials between your host machine and the container
  • The included Dev Container configuration uses Dev Container features created by the EmbedOps team.
• A CI YAML job that builds the project for the specified Git/CI provider

For this Quick Start, you can build the project by running:

make

within the Dev Container.

Running commands within the Dev Container

• If you are using VS Code, see these Dev Container docs for instructions on opening a terminal within a Dev Container.

• If you are NOT using VS Code, you can install the devcontainer CLI and run commands like so:

  devcontainer up --workspace-folder .
  devcontainer exec --workspace-folder . make
  

7b. Add the Cppcheck tool

Run the following command to add a Dev Container with the static analysis tool Cppcheck:

eo add cppcheck

The GIF below demonstrates the terminal output:

If you previously ran the eo add arm-none-gcc-build command, the CLI will attempt to merge JSON and YAML snippets into existing files.

After running the command, you should have:

• A Dev Container containing the cppcheck command-line tool
• A CI YAML job that runs Cppcheck with a basic configuration on your chosen Git/CI provider

To validate that Cppcheck is working inside the Quick Start project’s Dev Container, run:

cppcheck src/app

8. Analyze memory via an ELF file

The EmbedOps CLI offers a memory analysis tool that lets you choose an ELF file for generating a Treemap diagram of what’s consuming space in the binary.

1. First, build the Quick Start project:

   make
   

   This command creates a build directory containing an ELF file.

2. Run the memory analysis tool:

   eo analyze-memory
   

   You should see a list of ELF files to choose from. Since you built the project beforehand, you can select the ELF file at build/stm/debug/src/embedops-dev-demo.elf.

Below is a GIF demonstrating the terminal output:

After analysis completes, the CLI attempts to open a browser window to display the resulting diagram. It also prints the URL for your convenience. This diagram is rendered using the EmbedOps web app and may look like this:

The diagram is interactive, so feel free to click around and toggle between flash and RAM analysis!

9. Continuous Integration (CI)

In the files generated by Step 7, you’ll find configuration files for your chosen Git provider’s built-in CI system (GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket). Once you push these files to your remote repository, your CI should automatically trigger two jobs:

1. ARM GCC build
2. Cppcheck Run

For Bitbucket Users

You must Enable Pipelines before these CI jobs can run. Go to Repository Settings > Pipelines > Settings in your Bitbucket repo and toggle Pipelines on.

Next Steps

Congratulations on completing the Quick Start! You’ve successfully set up your repository, installed the CLI, and explored some of the general tools EmbedOps CLI has to offer.

If you’d like to integrate a Hardware-In-The-Loop (HIL) setup using the EmbedOps approach, check out our HIL Quick Start.