Workbench for Zephyr

For years the OpenSTM32 community has built on System Workbench for STM32, our Eclipse based IDE for bare metal STM32 development. Many STM32 projects now run on the Zephyr RTOS, and developers increasingly work in Visual Studio Code. Workbench for Zephyr is our answer: a free and open source VS Code extension that makes Zephyr development on STM32 straightforward from the first project.

Workbench for Zephyr installs the host tools for you, manages the Zephyr SDK, and creates a project for your STM32 board from the Zephyr samples. You build, flash and debug without leaving the editor, using the ST-LINK GDB Server and OpenOCD from STM32CubeCLT, or J-Link and pyOCD if you prefer. The built in Devicetree Manager gives you a CubeMX style view of pins and peripherals.

If you already use System Workbench, think of Workbench for Zephyr as the same approach applied to Zephyr and VS Code. It is available now on the Visual Studio Marketplace, with documentation and STM32 board tutorials at z-workbench.com.

To get going, see Workbench for Zephyr and Getting started with Workbench for Zephyr.

Setting up Zephyr for the first time can be the hardest part. Workbench for Zephyr takes care of it for you, so your first build on an STM32 board is a matter of minutes rather than an afternoon of toolchain configuration.

The flow is short: install the extension from the Marketplace, run Install Host Tools, add a Zephyr SDK, then create a project for your board from the Zephyr samples. The getting started page walks through it with a short video, and the guides on z-workbench.com cover Windows, Linux and macOS in detail.

There are STM32 board tutorials to follow along with, including the STM32F746G-DISCO, the STM32L562E-DK and the NUCLEO-WBA55CG. Each one goes from an empty workspace to a running, debuggable application on the board.

See Getting started with Workbench for Zephyr to begin, and read the full documentation at z-workbench.com.