modm: a barebone embedded library generator

modm (pronounced like dial-up "modem") is a toolbox for building custom C++17 libraries tailored to your embedded device. modm generates startup code, HALs and their implementations, communication protocols, drivers for external devices, BSPs, etc… in a modular, customizable process that you can fine-tune to your needs.

This project has a homepage.
Check out our install instructions and our getting started guide.
Feast your eyes on lots of working examples.
Our CI checks every contribution for regressions.
We care about testing modm.
API reference is available here.

This project also has a technical blog to document larger design concepts.

You found a bug? Open up an issue, we don't bite.
You want to contribute? Read the contribution guidelines and open a pull request.

modm is optimized for the harsh requirements of the Eurobot competition, where our robots need to run reliably and completely autonomously for the game's 100 second duration. Our robots contain a lot of different microcontrollers, some without a lot of resources, so modm needs to fulfill a diverse set of objectives, like small code size with small memory consumption, predictable program flow, extreme portability.

The library source code is licensed as MPLv2 with any external source code under compatible licenses (BSD, Apache2, MIT). So feel free to fork this project and adapt it to your needs. The only thing we ask of you is to contribute your changes back so everyone can benefit.

Please clone modm recursively, you need all the submodules:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/modm-io/modm.git

Features

Efficient and fast object-oriented C++17 API.
Support for hundreds of AVR and ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers from Atmel and ST.
Build system agnostic: Choose SCons, CMake or use your own.
Data-driven, target-specific HAL generation using the lbuild engine.
No memory allocations in HAL with very low overall RAM consumption.
Highly-configurable modules with sensible defaults and lots of documentation.
Cross platform peripheral interfaces incl. bit banging:
- GPIO and GPIO expanders.
- ADC and Analog.
- UART, I²C, SPI, CAN.
Interfaces and drivers for many external I²C and SPI sensors and devices.
Debug/logging system with IOStream and printf interface.
Lightweight, stackless threads and resumable functions using cooperative multitasking.
Functional (partial) libstdc++ implementation for AVRs.
Integration of useful third-party software: FreeRTOS, ROSserial, CMSIS-DSP.
Useful filter, interpolation and geometric algorithms.
Lightweight unit testing system (suitable for AVRs).
Hundreds of tests to ensure correct functionality.

Targets

modm can generate code for 530 AVR and 1857 STM32 devices, however, there are different levels of support and testing.

Device Family	Support	Device Family	Support	Device Family	Support
AVR	★★★	STM32F0	★★★★	STM32F1	★★★★
STM32F2	★★★★	STM32F3	★★★★★	STM32F4	★★★★★
STM32F7	★★★★	STM32L1	★★★★	STM32L4	★★★★
STM32L4+	★★★★	STM32G0	★★★★	STM32G4	★★★★

All of these targets are compiling and booting correctly (★) and have GPIO and UART working (★★). Most targets have support for basic peripherals, like I2C, SPI and ADC (★★★) as well as complicated peripherals, like Timers, CAN and external memory (★★★★). We also use a few targets in everyday development, which are very well tested (★★★★★).

We are only a small team of developers and are limited in the amount of targets we can support and test in hardware. We have prepared, but currently not finished support for STM32F2, STM32L0 and STM32L1. Open an issue to ask if your specific target is supported out-of-the-box and what you can do if it's not.

Boards

We have out-of-box support for several development boards including documentation.

AL-AVREB-CAN	Arduino NANO	Arduino UNO	Black Pill
Blue Pill	DISCO-F051R8	DISCO-F072RB	DISCO-F100RB
DISCO-F303VC	DISCO-F407VG	DISCO-F429ZI	DISCO-F469NI
DISCO-F746NG	DISCO-F769NI	DISCO-L152RC	DISCO-L476VG
MINI-F401	MINI-F411	NUCLEO-F031K6	NUCLEO-F042K6
NUCLEO-F103RB	NUCLEO-F303K8	NUCLEO-F401RE	NUCLEO-F411RE
NUCLEO-F429ZI	NUCLEO-F446RE	NUCLEO-G071RB	NUCLEO-G474RE
NUCLEO-L152RE	NUCLEO-L432KC	NUCLEO-L476RG	OLIMEXINO-STM32
STM32F030F4P6-DEMO

Drivers

We also have a number of completely target-independent drivers for external devices connected via I²C, SPI, UART, BitBang, etc. Most of these also give you access to the entire device so you can easily configure them for you specific needs.

AD7280A	AD7928	ADNS9800	ADS7843	AMS5915	APA102
SPI-FLASH	BME280	BMP085	BNO055	CAT24AA	DRV832X
DS1302	DS1631	DS18B20	EA-DOG	FT245	FT6X06
HCLAx	HD44780	HMC58x	HMC6343	I2C-EEPROM	ITG3200
L3GD20	LAWICEL	LIS302DL	LIS3DSH	LM75	LSM303A
LTC2984	MAX6966	MAX7219	MCP23X17	MCP2515	NOKIA5110
NRF24	TFT-DISPLAY	PAT9125EL	PCA8574	PCA9535	PCA9548A
PCA9685	SIEMENS-S65	SIEMENS-S75	SK6812	SK9822	SSD1306
TCS3414	TCS3472	TLC594X	TMP102	TMP175	VL53L0
VL6180	WS2812

Please see our examples for a complete list of tested targets and drivers.

How can I contribute?

The easiest way for you and the best way for us to see if something is unclear or missing, is if you use the library and give us some feedback by filing a bug report or if you have a fix already, opening a pull request.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for our contribution guidelines.

The modm project is maintained by Niklas Hauser (@salkinium) with significant contributions from Sascha Schade (@strongly-typed), Fabian Greif (@dergraaf), Kevin Läufer (@ekiwi), Martin Rosekeit (@thundernail), Daniel Krebs (@daniel-k), Georgi Grinshpun (@georgi-g) and

33 more contributors.

Folder structure

examples: Example projects that show the usage of parts of the modm library. These projects are always up to date and are tested to compile by our CI.
src: This folder contains the actual source code of modm grouped into several modules.
test: Contains hundreds of tests for making sure modm works the way we expect it to.
docs: General documentation about this library and how to use it.
ext: Third-party code used in this library.
tools: Support tools, scripts and files.

W-M-D / modm