atech

The open-source way to write firmware for Atech boards — designed for humans + coding agents working together.

You have an Atech motherboard and you want it to do something. With this SDK installed, you can ask Claude Code (or any coding agent that can run Python) — "make my board light up red when the button is pressed" — and the agent has everything it needs: a catalog of available modules, the public API of each driver, deterministic codegen, a real compiler, and an upload command. No cloud account, no AI prompts in the SDK, no proprietary glue.

What is atech?

A pip-installable kit that turns a plain-language idea into working firmware on an Atech ESP32-S3 board — no electronics knowledge, pin maps, or C++/PlatformIO setup required. The compiler is bundled, so one pip install both builds and flashes, fully offline.

The intended flow — a person describes what they want; their coding agent writes a tiny spec plus a small behaviour snippet; the SDK deterministically compiles and flashes it. The split is deliberate:

• The agent understands intent and writes the behaviour (a few lines of C++), using each module's published API — which it discovers, never guesses.
• The SDK does everything mechanical: pin allocation, driver assembly, main.cpp generation, compiling, flashing — identical every time, no LLM in that path.

You: "make a lamp shine green on port 3"
 → agent: list-modules → reads neopixel API → writes project.yaml
 → atech validate → atech build → atech upload  →  green lamp 🟢

You can also drive it yourself: write the project.yaml (or the Python Project builder) and run the CLI.

What you can do with it

In the catalog today: 2 boards (8port, 14port) and 9 modules — button, rotary_encoder, pir, aht20 (temp/humidity), neopixel, st7735_tft (colour display), speaker, dc_motor, stepper_motor. Run atech list-modules for the live list. How the board communicates is in COMMUNICATION.md.

Install

pip install atech
# or
uv add atech

PlatformIO is pulled in as a dep, so a single install builds and flashes.

What it gives a coding agent

A coding agent working in a user's repo gets four things:

1. A discoverable catalog of bundled modules with rich metadata.

   atech list-modules
   atech list-modules --category sensor
   python -c "from atech import get_module; print(get_module('button').usage)"
   

   Each module's usage: field is a short C++ snippet showing the public API — no need for the agent to grep through driver headers.

2. A small declarative project format (project.yaml) that the agent writes or edits directly:

   name: my_thing
   board: 8port
   modules:
     - {id: button,   instance: btn, port: 3}
     - {id: neopixel, instance: led, port: 4}
   code:
     loop: |
       if (btn.wasPressed()) { led.setAll(255, 0, 0); led.show(); }
   

3. Mechanical, deterministic codegen. atech build turns the YAML into a vanilla PlatformIO project, compiles it, and produces a firmware.bin. No LLM in this path — the agent owns the behavior, the SDK owns the plumbing.

4. An upload + monitor flow that doesn't require the user to know PlatformIO internals: atech upload / atech monitor.

60-second example

atech new thermo --board 8port
cd thermo
# Tell Claude (or write yourself):
#   "edit project.yaml to add a button on port 3 and a neopixel on port 4,
#    and in code.loop, cycle the neopixel through six colours on each press"
atech validate .
atech build .
atech upload .

Or, fully programmatic:

from atech import Project

(
    Project(board="8port", name="thermo")
        .add("button",   port=3, instance="btn")
        .add("neopixel", port=4, instance="led")
        .set_loop("""
            if (btn.wasPressed()) {
                static uint8_t hue = 0;
                hue += 60;
                led.setAll(hue, 0, 255 - hue);
                led.show();
            }
        """)
        .build()
        .upload()
)

Robot arm: check the power supply and the arm first

The Robot Arm module passes the board's high-voltage rail (labelled 12 V) straight to the servos. That rail is fed by a power module (the power jack module, or the USB-C PD power module) and carries whatever that module is given. Nothing regulates it, and the standard USB-C module does not feed it.

• SO-101 arms come in a 12 V and a 5 V version.
• The supply must match the arm: a 12 V supply for the 12 V arm, a 5 V supply for the 5 V arm.
• A 12 V supply on a 5 V arm damages the servos.
• Never plug more than 12 V into the jack.
• Check the voltage printed on the supply, and which arm you have, before you connect anything.
• Both versions have been run this way: power jack module and Robot Arm module, nothing outside the Atech stack.

atech validate, atech build and atech upload print this as a CAUTION whenever a project contains robot_arm.

Bringing your own module

If the bundled catalog doesn't cover what the user has, drop a folder next to project.yaml:

my_project/
├── project.yaml          # add `modules_path: ./my_modules`
└── my_modules/
    └── lidar_v2/
        ├── module.yaml   # id, templates, usage, lib_deps
        ├── lidar_v2.h
        └── lidar_v2.cpp

Same shape as the SDK's src/atech/catalog/data/modules/ tree. The SDK merges your modules with the bundled catalog at build time; you never have to fork.

The full Python API

import atech

# Discovery — what the agent should call first
atech.list_boards()
atech.list_modules(category="sensor")
atech.get_board("8port")
atech.get_module("button").usage     # C++ snippet showing the public API

# Project assembly
p = atech.Project(board="8port", name="weather")
p.add("button", port=3, instance="btn")
p.add("dc_motor", ports=(1, 2))            # double-width = adjacent pair
p.set_setup("Serial.println(\"booting\");")
p.set_loop("if (btn.wasPressed()) { Serial.println(\"hi\"); }")
p.use_modules_from("./my_modules")          # custom catalog directory
p.validate()                                # -> list[PlacementIssue]
p.describe()                                # human/agent summary + per-module usage
p.generate(out_dir="./build")               # -> Path to PlatformIO tree
p.build()                                   # -> BuildResult
p.upload(port="/dev/ttyACM0")               # -> UploadResult
p.to_yaml(); atech.Project.from_yaml(text); atech.Project.load(path)

# Runtime — after flashing
with atech.Board.connect() as board:
    for ev in board.events():
        print(ev.key, ev.value)
    board.send("led", {"r": 255, "g": 0, "b": 0})

How the board talks to your computer — the event/action model, the exact wire format, and the USB-Serial path — is in COMMUNICATION.md.

CLI

atech list-boards
atech list-modules [--category X]
atech new <name> --board <id>          # scaffolds project.yaml + README
atech validate [project-dir]
atech build    [project-dir]
atech upload   [project-dir] [--port X]

atech ports                            # candidate USB devices
atech monitor  [--port X] [--type T,T] [--key K,K] [--json]
atech send <key> <value> [--port X]

How a coding agent should drive it

CLAUDE.md — drop a copy into your project root and your coding agent will follow it. It covers: how to discover modules, how to write the code: block, what not to do (invent modules, skip validation, hand-edit generated files, use delay() in the loop).

Architecture (short version)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ atech.Project          ← agent assembles a hardware spec           │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ atech.placement        ← validates adjacency / reserved / overlap  │
│ atech.catalog          ← bundled + user-authored modules           │
│ atech.codegen          ← deterministic template stitching          │
│ atech.build / upload   ← `pio run` wrappers                        │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ atech.runtime.Board    ← serial client for the flashed board       │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
            │                                       │
       PlatformIO                              pyserial
            │                                       │
        ESP32 flash                          ESP32 USB-CDC

The closed Atech hosted product imports this SDK and layers AI module selection, OTA, sharing, and signing on top. The open SDK is everything needed to build firmware locally; nothing in this package phones home.

Status

v1.0.0a1 — alpha. Two boards (8port, 14port) and nine bundled modules: button, rotary_encoder, pir (motion), aht20 (temp/humidity), neopixel, st7735_tft (colour display), speaker (I2S audio), dc_motor, and stepper_motor. More ship through the catalog as they're ported in — run atech list-modules for the live list. The runtime serial API is stable and preserves the v0.1.x surface under atech.runtime.

See PRD.md and IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN.md for the longer story.

License

MIT.