Robot CI: Effortless building, testing, and deploying customized robot operating systems at scale. This tool lets you version control your entire robot OS configuration and makes remote development a breeze.

🎯 Key Features

This tool solves common challenges in robotics development:

Feature	Description
Version-Controlled OS	Track and manage your robot environment in code, enabling reproducible builds with GitHub Actions, and allowing for easy rollbacks and collaboration.
Remote Development	Provides optimized headless server images with automatic IP notifications via email, facilitating seamless remote development.
Customizable Environment	Allows for the pre-installation of drivers and custom packages, and the configuration of services and boot sequences to tailor the environment to specific needs.
Network Auto-Config	Automatically connects to WiFi networks and establishes a fallback access point when no WiFi networks are available, ensuring continuous connectivity.

👥 Ideal for Developers Who

• Desire a version-controlled robot environment.
• Require reproducible development setups.
• Prefer remote development over manual Pi configuration.
• Manage multiple robots with similar configurations.

🛠️ Example Use Cases

• Research labs managing multiple test platforms or robots
• Robotics companies deploying a fleet of robots
• Educational institutions maintaining student robots for course projects
• Development teams needing consistent robot environments across multiple robots

Note

Currently tested on Raspberry Pi 4 and 5. May not be compatible with Raspberry Pi Zero.

📝 Quick Start Guide

1. Use This Template

1. Click the "Use this template" button on the repository page to create a new repository based on this template.
2. Set up these secrets in your new repository under Actions and as repository secrets:

Secret	Purpose
EMAIL_ADDRESS	Email address(es) to send notifications to; separate multiple addresses with commas ("," and not ", ")
ENTNETWORK_SSID	Enterprise network name
ENTNETWORK_IDENTITY	Network username
ENTNETWORK_PASSWORD	Network password
ENTNETWORK_PRIORITY	Connection priority (>5 for enterprise)
SMTP_SERVER	SMTP server for email notifications, for Gmail use smtp.gmail.com
SMTP_USERNAME	Username for the email account that will send notifications
SMTP_PASSWORD	Password for the email account that will send notifications

2. Build Your Image

1. Go to Actions tab → Build a Robot Operating System
2. Click Run Workflow and select your build options:
   • Choose device model, OS distribution, and architecture
   • Set hostname, username, and password
   • Configure WiFi settings for additional home networks
3. Once the build is complete, the OS image will be available as an artifact in the Actions tab.

3. Deploy & Connect

1. Download and flash the image to SD card using Raspberry Pi Imager
2. Boot your Pi
3. Connect via:
   • Enterprise or Home network: Check email for IP
   • Fallback AP mode: Connect to Pi's network (IP: 10.0.0.200)

🌐 Network Behavior

Network management is streamlined by Robonet, our custom CLI tool designed to simplify network configuration and management.

Here's a brief overview of its functionality:

• Primary Connection: Automatically connects to prioritized WiFi networks.
• Fallback Mode: Establishes an access point with a static IP of 10.0.0.200 when no preferred networks are available.
• IP Notification: Sends an email notification with the device's IP address upon successful connection.

Read more about Robonet here.

🤝 Contributing

All contributions are welcome! Please:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Submit a pull request

📜 License

This project is licensed under Apache 2.0.

🐛 Issues

Found a bug or have a suggestion? Please open an issue.