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Yocto Builder

Version 0.1.0.

What it does​

Yocto Builder turns a few choices — board, starting template, packages, users, your own app code — into a Yocto/kas build, runs it on a remote bringup worker device, and walks you through flashing the result onto an SD card. Build failures are diagnosed in plain language rather than left as raw bitbake output.

When you'd use it​

You want a custom Raspberry Pi image — a minimal headless console image, or one with a Python runtime and your own app baked in — without hand-writing bitbake recipes.

Enable or install​

Like other extensions, it can be enabled, disabled, or uninstalled from the Extensions view. Yocto Builder did not appear in the extensions marketplace catalog when this was written, unlike several other extensions — check the Extensions view's own list (or Install from local) if you don't see it already installed. It contributes the Yocto: Open Builder command and a sidebar entry titled Yocto Builder. Building needs a Linux (x86_64 or aarch64) machine enrolled as a bringup worker device (Fleet → Enroll device) with Docker installed and reachable over the mesh, and your SSH user, key, and port set under Settings → Yocto Builder.

Key screens​

  • Projects rail — one card per project: status (Never built / Building / Ready / Failed), board, template, package/app counts, and a progress bar while a build is running; + New opens the project wizard.
  • New project wizard — a name, a board (Raspberry Pi 4 64-bit, or Raspberry Pi 5), and a starting template (Minimal console, or Python app image).
  • Project header — board, template, Yocto release (scarthgap), a worker picker, and stat tiles for target, template, packages, apps, users, and last build.
  • Build — Start build (blocked while you have unsaved changes); while running, a phase tracker (Preflight checks → Upload config → bitbake build), a task-count progress bar, and a following log. A failed preflight check lists what's wrong and how to fix it. A finished build shows either the produced image and its size, or a plain-language explanation of the failure — the failing recipe/task, an excerpt, a suggested fix, and, for a full worker disk, a Clean old build artifacts on the worker button — plus a history of past builds.
  • Customize — five sections: Packages (a curated picker plus freeform additions), System (hostname, timezone, an SSH toggle, optional WiFi), Users (unix accounts, an optional password, SSH public keys), Apps (your code — from git or a local folder, Python or a prebuilt aarch64 binary, optionally run as a systemd service), and Raw overrides (a kas YAML file merged in last, for anything the other tabs don't cover).
  • Flash — appears once a build has succeeded: download the image (with progress and a checksum check), flash it with Raspberry Pi Imager or balenaEtcher, then a first-boot checklist personalized from your actual settings (the SSH command to use, WiFi vs. Ethernet).

Common tasks​

  • Create a project — + New, name it, pick a board and template.
  • Add your app — Customize → Apps, point it at a git repository or a local folder.
  • Build it — Build → Start build; first builds take hours, later ones reuse a shared cache and are faster.
  • Flash it — once a build succeeds, open Flash and follow its three steps.
  • Recover from a failed build — read the explanation and suggested fix on the Build tab; for a full disk, use Clean old build artifacts on the worker.

Permissions requested​

commands.register, commands.execute, statusBar.write, notifications.show, authentication.session, terminal.execute, devices.read, network.http, workspace.read, workspace.write.

Known limits​

  • Only Raspberry Pi 4 (64-bit) and Raspberry Pi 5 are supported boards.
  • Needs a bringup worker device — a Linux machine with Docker, reachable over the mesh; there's no build capability without one, and the project view says as much when none is enrolled.
  • Yocto needs roughly 100 GB of free disk on the worker, and a first build can take hours; later builds reuse the shared cache.
  • A dropped connection to the worker doesn't stop the build — it continues there while the panel reconnects.

Fleet Manager — enrolls the Linux worker device this extension builds on.