nRF5 SDK VSCode Extension

This extension provides a set of tools and settings for developing nRF5 SDK applications in Visual Studio Code instead of Segger Embedded Studio.

• Automatic configuration of example projects located in the examples folder of the nRF5 SDK.
• IntelliSense for the nRF5 SDK APIs by reading the .emProject files.
• Choice of the build target, SoftDevice and mode (debug/release) for each project.
• Build and Flash the selected project to a connected nRF5 device.
• Debug the selected project using the Cortex-Debug extension.

Requirements

• nRF5 SDK
• Segger Embedded Studio for building the projects
• nrfjprog for flashing the code and SoftDevices to the microcontroller
• J-Link for debugging (Mostly included with Segger Embedded Studio)

Warning

Support for other build tools and flashers are not yet implemented.

Usage

Opening a project

Open any project that includes a Segger Embedded Studio project file (.emProject) in Visual Studio Code. You will get asked whether the paths to the tools are correct. If not, you can close the prompt and adjust the paths yourself (Also see Settings).

Upon opening the folder, a prompt will occur which will ask you which target, SoftDevice and build mode you want to use (e.g. pca10040 (nRF52 DK), s132, Debug)

You should get a confirmation message that the project has been configured successfully

Activities

You can build, clean, flash and debug the project using either

• The provided commands in the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P)
• The activity bar on the left side of the window
• The status bar at the bottom of the window

Debugging

The debug session is a standard Cortex-Debug debug session with RTT and Cortex Live Watch enabled.

RTT (Real-Time Transfer)

The nRF Log module can use RTT to transfer debug messages from and to the device. Any initialized channel can be viewed in the TERMINAL tab.

Cortex Live Watch

LiveView enables the monitoring of variables during debugging without halting the code. You can add and remove variables to be monitored in the debug view in the activity bar, where you can also see the values.

Contributions

Commands

Command	Description
nrf5-vscode: Show project info	Show information about the currently selected project
nrf5-vscode: Choose project	Choose target device and build variant
nrf5-vscode: Build	Build the current project
nrf5-vscode: Clean	Clean built files of the current project
nrf5-vscode: Flash	Flash the current project
nrf5-vscode: Start Debug Session	Start a debug session in the current project

These commands can be used as usual inside the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) or in the tasks.json file.

Example

{
	"version": "2.0.0",
	"tasks": [
		{
			"type": "nrf5-vscode",
			"command": "build",
			"problemMatcher": [
				"$gcc"
			],
			"label": "Build Project",
			"group": {
				"kind": "build",
				"isDefault": false
			}
		},
		{
			"type": "nrf5-vscode",
			"command": "flash",
			"dependsOn": "Build Project",
			"label": "Flash Project",
			"group": {
				"kind": "build",
				"isDefault": true
			}
		}
	]
}

Settings

• nrf5-vscode.seggerEmbeddedStudioPath

  Path to the Segger Embedded Studio directory

  default: ``

• nrf5-vscode.jLinkPath

  Path to the J-Link directory

  default: ``

Building it yourself

1. Clone the repository
2. Run npm install
3. Run npm run compile
4. Run npm run package
5. Install the .vsix file in Visual Studio Code

Changelog

See the CHANGELOG.md file for more information.

License

This extension is licensed under a custom license. See the LICENSE.md file for more information.