Additional Zephyr extension commands

This page documents miscellaneous Zephyr Extensions.

Listing boards: west boards

The boards command can be used to list the boards that are supported by Zephyr without having to resort to additional sources of information.

It can be run by typing:

west boards

This command lists all supported boards in a default format. If you prefer to specify the display format yourself you can use the --format (or -f) flag:

west boards -f "{arch}:{name}"

Additional help about the formatting options can be found by running:

west boards -h

Shell completion scripts: west completion

The completion extension command outputs shell completion scripts that can then be used directly to enable shell completion for the supported shells.

It currently supports the following shells:

  • bash

  • zsh

  • fish

  • powershell (board qualifiers only)

Additional instructions are available in the command’s help:

west help completion

Installing CMake packages: west zephyr-export

This command registers the current Zephyr installation as a CMake config package in the CMake user package registry.

In Windows, the CMake user package registry is found in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Kitware\CMake\Packages.

In Linux and MacOS, the CMake user package registry is found in. ~/.cmake/packages.

You may run this command when setting up a Zephyr workspace. If you do, application CMakeLists.txt files that are outside of your workspace will be able to find the Zephyr repository with the following:

find_package(Zephyr REQUIRED HINTS $ENV{ZEPHYR_BASE})

See share/zephyr-package/cmake for details.

Software bill of materials: west spdx

This command generates SPDX 2.2 or 2.3 tag-value documents, creating relationships from source files to the corresponding generated build files. SPDX-License-Identifier comments in source files are scanned and filled into the SPDX documents.

To use this command:

  1. Pre-populate a build directory BUILD_DIR like this:

    west spdx --init -d BUILD_DIR

    This step ensures the build directory contains CMake metadata required for SPDX document generation.

  2. Enable CONFIG_BUILD_OUTPUT_META in your project.

  3. Build your application using this pre-created build directory, like so:

    west build -d BUILD_DIR [...]

  4. Generate SPDX documents using this build directory:

    west spdx -d BUILD_DIR

    By default, this generates SPDX 2.3 documents. To generate SPDX 2.2 documents instead:

    west spdx -d BUILD_DIR --spdx-version 2.2

Note

When building with Sysbuild (System build), make sure you target the actual application which you want to generate the SBOM for. For example, if the application is named hello_world:

west spdx --init  -d BUILD_DIR/hello_world
west build -d BUILD_DIR/hello_world
west spdx -d BUILD_DIR/hello_world

This generates the following SPDX bill-of-materials (BOM) documents in BUILD_DIR/spdx/:

  • app.spdx: BOM for the application source files used for the build

  • zephyr.spdx: BOM for the specific Zephyr source code files used for the build

  • build.spdx: BOM for the built output files

  • modules-deps.spdx: BOM for modules dependencies. Check modules for more details.

Each file in the bill-of-materials is scanned, so that its hashes (SHA256 and SHA1) can be recorded, along with any detected licenses if an SPDX-License-Identifier comment appears in the file.

SPDX Relationships are created to indicate dependencies between CMake build targets, build targets that are linked together, and source files that are compiled to generate the built library files.

west spdx accepts these additional options:

  • -n PREFIX: a prefix for the Document Namespaces that will be included in the generated SPDX documents. See SPDX specification clause 6 for details. If -n is omitted, a default namespace will be generated according to the default format described in section 2.5 using a random UUID.

  • -s SPDX_DIR: specifies an alternate directory where the SPDX documents should be written instead of BUILD_DIR/spdx/.

  • --spdx-version {2.2,2.3}: specifies which SPDX specification version to use. Defaults to 2.3. SPDX 2.3 includes additional fields like PrimaryPackagePurpose that are not available in SPDX 2.2.

  • --analyze-includes: in addition to recording the compiled source code files (e.g. .c, .S) in the bills-of-materials, also attempt to determine the specific header files that are included for each .c file.

    This takes longer, as it performs a dry run using the C compiler for each .c file using the same arguments that were passed to it for the actual build.

  • --include-sdk: with --analyze-includes, also create a fourth SPDX document, sdk.spdx, which lists header files included from the SDK.

Warning

The generation of SBOM documents for the native_sim platform is currently not supported.

Working with binary blobs: west blobs

The blobs command allows users to interact with binary blobs declared in one or more modules via their module.yml file.

The blobs command has three sub-commands, used to list, fetch or clean (i.e. delete) the binary blobs themselves.

You can list binary blobs while specifying the format of the output:

west blobs list -f '{module}: {type} {path}'

For the full set of variables available in -f/--format run west blobs -h.

Fetching blobs works in a similar manner:

west blobs fetch

Note that, as described in the modules section, fetched blobs are stored in a zephyr/blobs/ folder relative to the root of the corresponding module repository.

As does deleting them:

west blobs clean

Additionally the tool allows you to specify the modules you want to list, fetch or clean blobs for by typing the module names as a command-line parameter.

Twister wrapper: west twister

This command is a wrapper for twister.

Twister can then be invoked via west as follows:

west twister -help
west twister -T tests/ztest/base

Working with binary descriptors: west bindesc

The bindesc command allows users to read binary descriptors of executable files. It currently supports .bin, .hex, .elf and .uf2 files as input.

You can search for a specific descriptor in an image, for example:

west bindesc search KERNEL_VERSION_STRING build/zephyr/zephyr.bin

You can search for a custom descriptor by type and ID, for example:

west bindesc custom_search STR 0x200 build/zephyr/zephyr.bin

You can dump all of the descriptors in an image using:

west bindesc dump build/zephyr/zephyr.bin

You can list all known standard descriptor names using:

west bindesc list

You can print the offset of the descriptors inside the image using:

west bindesc get_offset

Indexing the sources with GNU Global: west gtags

Important

You must install the gtags and global programs provided by GNU Global to use this command.

The west gtags command lets you create a GNU Global tags file for the entire west workspace:

west gtags

This will create a tags file named GTAGS in the workspace topdir (it will also create other Global-related metadata files named GPATH and GRTAGS in the same place).

You can then run the global command anywhere inside the workspace to search for symbol locations using this tags file.

For example, to search for definitions of the arch_system_halt() function, starting from the zephyr/drivers directory:

$ cd zephyr/drivers
$ global -x arch_system_halt
arch_system_halt   65 ../arch/arc/core/fatal.c FUNC_NORETURN void arch_system_halt(unsigned int reason)
arch_system_halt  455 ../arch/arm64/core/fatal.c FUNC_NORETURN void arch_system_halt(unsigned int reason)
arch_system_halt  137 ../arch/nios2/core/fatal.c FUNC_NORETURN void arch_system_halt(unsigned int reason)
arch_system_halt   18 ../arch/posix/core/fatal.c FUNC_NORETURN void arch_system_halt(unsigned int reason)
arch_system_halt   17 ../arch/x86/core/fatal.c FUNC_NORETURN void arch_system_halt(unsigned int reason)
arch_system_halt  126 ../arch/xtensa/core/fatal.c FUNC_NORETURN void arch_system_halt(unsigned int reason)
arch_system_halt   21 ../kernel/fatal.c FUNC_NORETURN __weak void arch_system_halt(unsigned int reason)

This prints the search symbol, the line it is defined on, a relative path to the file it is defined in, and the line itself, for all places where the symbol is defined.

Additional tips:

  • This can also be useful to search for vendor HAL function definitions.

  • See the global command’s manual page for more information on how to use this tool.

  • You should run global, not west global. There is no need for a separate west global command since global already searches for the GTAGS file starting from your current working directory. This is why you need to run global from inside the workspace.

Working with patches: west patch

The patch command allows users to apply patches to Zephyr or Zephyr modules in a controlled manner that makes automation and tracking easier for external applications that use the T2 star topology. The patches.yml file stores metadata about patch files and fills-in the gaps between official Zephyr releases, so that users can easily see the status of any upstreaming efforts, and determine which patches to drop before upgrading to the next Zephyr release.

There are several sub-commands available to manage patches for Zephyr or other modules in the workspace:

  • apply: apply patches listed in patches.yml

  • clean: remove all patches that have been applied, and reset to the manifest checkout state

  • list: list all patches in patches.yml

  • gh-fetch: fetch patches from a GitHub pull request

west-workspace/
└── application/
   ...
   ├── west.yml
   └── zephyr
       ├── module.yml
       ├── patches
       │   ├── bootloader
       │   │   └── mcuboot
       │   │       └── my-tweak-for-mcuboot.patch
       │   └── zephyr
       │       └── my-zephyr-change.patch
       └── patches.yml

In this example, the west manifest file, west.yml, would pin to a specific Zephyr revision (e.g. v4.1.0) and apply patches against that revision of Zephyr and the specific revisions of other modules used in the application. However, this application needs two changes in order to meet requirements; one for Zephyr and another for MCUBoot.

patches:
  - path: zephyr/my-zephyr-change.patch
    sha256sum: c676cd376a4d19dc95ac4e44e179c253853d422b758688a583bb55c3c9137035
    module: zephyr
    author: Obi-Wan Kenobi
    email: obiwan@jedi.org
    date: 2025-05-04
    upstreamable: false
    comments: |
      An application-specific change we need for Zephyr.
  - path: bootloader/mcuboot/my-tweak-for-mcuboot.patch
    sha256sum: e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855
    module: mcuboot
    author: Darth Sidious
    email: sidious@sith.org
    date: 2025-05-04
    merge-pr: https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/pull/<pr-number>
    issue: https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/issues/<issue-number>
    merge-status: true
    merge-commit: 1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef12345678
    merge-date: 2025-05-06
    apply-command: git apply
    comments: |
      A change to mcuboot that has been merged already. We can remove this
      patch when we are ready to upgrade to the next Zephyr release.

Patches can easily be applied in an automated manner. For example:

west init -m <manifest repo> <workspace>
cd <workspace>
west update
west patch apply

When it is time to update to a newer version of Zephyr, the west.yml file can be updated to point at the next Zephyr release, e.g. v4.2.0. Patches that are no longer needed, like my-tweak-for-mcuboot.patch in the example above, can be removed from patches.yml and from the external application repository, and then the following commands can be run.

west patch clean
west update
west patch apply --roll-back # roll-back all patches if one does not apply cleanly

If a patch needs to be reworked, remember to update the patches.yml file with the new SHA256 checksum.

sha256sum zephyr/patches/zephyr/my-zephyr-change.patch
7d57ca78d5214f422172cc47fed9d0faa6d97a0796c02485bff0bf29455765e9

It is also possible to use west patch gh-fetch to fetch patches from a GitHub pull request and automatically create or update the patches.yml file. This can be useful when the author already has a number of changes captured in existing upstream pull requests.

west patch gh-fetch --owner zephyrproject-rtos --repo zephyr --pull-request <pr-number> \
  --module zephyr --split-commits

The above command will create the directory and file structure below, which includes patches for each individual commit associated with the given pull request.

zephyr
├── patches
│   ├── first-commit-from-pr.patch
│   ├── second-commit-from-pr.patch
│   └── third-commit-from-pr.patch
└── patches.yml