RDK (Robot Development Kit)

Viam provides an open source robot architecture that provides robotics functionality via simple APIs

Website: viam.com

Documentation: docs.viam.com

Cloud App: app.viam.com

Contact

• Discord: https://discord.gg/viam
• Support: https://support.viam.com

If you have a bug or an idea, please open an issue here.

Building and Using

Dependencies

• Install make.
• Run make setup to install dev environment requirements.
  • This also installs some client side git hooks.

Build and Run

• Build: make server. Then run ./bin/<your architecture>/server [parameters]
• Run without building: go run web/cmd/server/main.go [parameters]

Example with a dummy configuration: go run web/cmd/server/main.go -config etc/configs/fake.json. Then visit http://localhost:8080 to access remote control.

Examples

• SimpleServer - example for creating a simple custom server.
• MySensor - example for creating a custom sensor.
• MyComponent - example for creating a custom resource API.

SDKs

Multiple SDKs are available for writing client applications that interface with the Viam RDK.

• Go: Provided by this repository here. Documentation can be found here
• Python: Docs, Repository
• Typescript: Docs, Repository
• C++: Docs, Repository
• Rust: Repository

Environment Variable Settings

Environment Variable	Behavior	Default Value
VIAM_RESOURCE_CONFIGURATION_TIMEOUT	Duration for which resources are allowed to (re)configure.	1 minute
VIAM_MODULE_STARTUP_TIMEOUT	Duration for which modules are allowed to startup.	5 minutes
ENV	If set to "development", runs the frontend development server.	Server runs normally

Development

Sign the Contribution Agreement before submitting pull requests.

API

The API is defined with Protocol Buffers/gRPC which can be found at https://github.com/viamrobotics/api.

Conventions

• Write tests!
• Follow this Go Style Guide.
• Run make lint and make test.
• Run make build and commit resulting frontend artifacts.
• Use imperative mood for commits (see Git Documentation).
• Prefer metric SI prefixes where possible (e.g. millis) https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-measures/metric-si-prefixes. The type of measurement (e.g. meters) is not necessary if it is implied (e.g. rulerLengthMillis).

Committing

• Follow git's guidance on commit messages:

Describe your changes in imperative mood, e.g. "make xyzzy do frotz" instead of "[This patch] makes xyzzy do frotz" or "[I] changed xyzzy to do frotz", as if you are giving orders to the codebase to change its behavior. Try to make sure your explanation can be understood without external resources. Instead of giving a URL to a mailing list archive, summarize the relevant points of the discussion.

Frontend

See documentation in Frontend Readme.

To start the client development environment, first run the same go run command mentioned in Building and Using, but with the environmental variable ENV=development (e.g. ENV=development go run web/cmd/server/main.go -debug -config etc/configs/fake.json).

If you are in the web/frontend directory this is aliased as npm run server.

You will additionally need to start a development server for client assets. To do this, navigate to web/frontend and run npm start (and npm install if doing this for the first time) in a new terminal tab. Visit localhost:8080 to view the app, not localhost:5173. The latter is the above-mentioned hot module replacement server that rebuilds frontend asset changes.

Frontend against a remote host

See documentation in Direct Remote Control.

License check

We run LicenseFinder in CI to verify 3rd-party libraries have approved software licenses. If you add a 3rd-party library to this project, please run make license-check to verify that it can be used.

For maintainers, here is how to make some common license policy changes:

Permit a new license (e.g. MIT):

https://github.com/pivotal/LicenseFinder#permitting-licenses

license_finder permitted_licenses add MIT

Associate a license with a dependency that is not automatically detected or incorrect:

https://github.com/pivotal/LicenseFinder#setting-licenses

license_finder licenses add my_new_dependency MIT

Approve a dependency outright - please include a reason if you do this!

https://github.com/pivotal/LicenseFinder#approving-dependencies

license_finder approvals add my_new_dependency --why="valid reason"

Please refer to the README at https://github.com/pivotal/LicenseFinder for information on how to make other license policy changes.

Windows Support (Experimental)

Windows 10 22H2 and up.

Development Dependencies

• bash (from https://gitforwindows.org/ is good)
• gcc (from https://www.msys2.org/ mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain is good)

Support is not well tested yet.

Known Issues

• motion planning is not supported yet (https://viam.atlassian.net/browse/RSDK-1772).
• video streaming is not supported yet (https://viam.atlassian.net/browse/RSDK-1771).
• rpc: ICE between local connections found via ICE mDNS appear to be flaky in the establishment phase.

License

Copyright 2021-2023 Viam Inc.

AGPLv3 - See LICENSE file