IDF Component Manager

The IDF Component manager is a tool that downloads dependencies for any ESP-IDF CMake project. It makes sure that the right versions of all components required for a successful build of your project are in place. The download happens automatically during a run of CMake. It can source components either from the component registry or from a git repository.

A list of components can be found on https://components.espressif.com/

Installing the IDF Component Manager

IDF component manager can be used with ESP-IDF v4.1 and later.

Starting ESP-IDF v4.4 the idf-component-manager package is installed by default and no extra action is necessary.

In ESP-IDF v4.1 — v4.3, you need to install the following Python package to use the component manager:

source $IDF_PATH/export.sh
pip install idf-component-manager --upgrade

Disabling the Component Manager

The component manager can be explicitly disabled by setting IDF_COMPONENT_MANAGER environment variable to 0.

Using with a project

You can add idf_component.yml manifest files with the list of dependencies to any component in your project.

IDF Component Manager will download dependencies automatically during the project build process.

When CMake configures the project (e.g. idf.py reconfigure) component manager does a few things:

Processes idf_component.yml manifests for every component in the project
Creates a dependencies.lock file in the root of the project with a full list of dependencies
Downloads all dependencies to the managed_components directory

The component manager won't try to regenerate dependencies.lock or download any components if manifests, lock file, and content of managed_component directory weren't modified since the last successful build.

Defining dependencies in the manifest

All dependencies are defined in the manifest file.

dependencies:
  # Required IDF version
  idf: ">=4.1"
  # For components maintained by Espressif only name can be used.
  # Same as `espressif/component`
  component:
    version: "~2.0.0"
  # Or in a shorter form
  component2: ">=1.0.0"
  # For 3rd party components :
  username/component:
    version: "~1.0.0"
    # For transient dependencies `public` flag can be set.
    public: true
  anotheruser/component: "<3.2.20"
  # For components hosted on non-default registry:
  company_user/component:
    version: "~1.0.0"
    service_url: "https://componentregistry.company.com"
  # For components in git repository:
  test_component:
    path: test_component
    git: ssh://git@gitlab.com/user/components.git
  # For test projects during component development
  # components can be used from a local directory
  # with relative or absolute path
  some_local_component:
    path: ../../projects/component
  # For optional dependencies
  optional_component:
    version: "~1.0.0"
    rules: # will add "optional_component" only when all if clauses are True
      - if: "idf_version >=3.3,<5.0" # supports all SimpleSpec grammars (https://python-semanticversion.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference.html#semantic_version.SimpleSpec)
      - if: "target in [esp32, esp32c3]" # supports boolean operator ==, !=, in, not in.
  # For example of the component
  namespace/component_with_example:
    version: "~1.0.0" # if there is no `override_path` field, use component from registry
    override_path: "../../" # use component in a local directory, not from registry
  namespace/no_required_component:
    version: "*"
    require: no  # Download component but don't add it as a requirement
  namespace/pre_release_component:
    version: "*"
    pre_release: true  # Allow downloading of pre-release versions

Environment variables in manifest

You can use environment variables in values in idf_component.yml manifests. $VAR or ${VAR} is replaced with the value of the VAR environment variable. If the environment variable is not defined, the component manager will raise an error.

Variable name should be ASCII alphanumeric string (including underscores) and start with an underscore or ASCII letter. The first non-identifier character after the $ terminates this placeholder specification. You can escape $ with one more$ character, i.e., $$ is replaced with $.

One possible use-case is providing authentication to git repositories accessed through HTTPS:

dependencies:
  my_component:
    git: https://git:${ACCESS_TOKEN}@git.my_git.com/my_component.git

Component metadata caching

By default information about available versions of components is cached for 3 hours. You can adjust caching period by setting the duration in minutes to IDF_COMPONENT_API_CACHE_EXPIRATION_MINUTES environment variable or disable the cache entirely by setting it to 0.

External links

You can add links to the idf_component.yml file to the root of the manifest:

url: "https://example.com/homepage" # URL of the component homepage
repository: "https://gitexample.com/test_project" # URL of the public repository with component source code, i.e GitHub, GitLab, etc.
documentation: "https://example.com/documentation" # URL of the component documentation
issues: "https://git.example.com/test_project/tracker" # URL of the issue tracker
discussion: "https://discord.example.com/test_project" # URL of the component discussion, i.e. Discord, Gitter, forum, etc.

A link should be a correct HTTP(S) URL like https://example.com/path except the repository field, it is expected to be a valid Git remote URL.

Contributions Guide

We welcome all contributions to the Component Manager project.

You can contribute by fixing bugs, adding features, adding documentation, or reporting an issue. We accept contributions via Github Pull Requests.

Before reporting an issue, make sure you've searched for a similar one that was already created. If you are reporting a new issue, please follow the Issue Template.

Resources

The Python Package Index project page https://pypi.org/project/idf-component-manager/
The Component Manager section in the ESP-IDF Programming Guide

jonathanfoster / idf-component-manager