Skip to main content

chumicro-mqtt

A non-blocking MQTT 3.1.1 client (QoS 0 + 1) that fits inside your runner tick. MQTT is the lightweight publish/subscribe protocol most IoT brokers speak.

Publish and subscribe at QoS 0 or QoS 1, set a last will, retain messages, and match wildcard topics. Messages published before the broker connection is up wait in a bounded queue and go out on connect, and inbound size limits keep one huge payload from exhausting a small heap. No threads, no async: the client does a bounded slice of work per tick, so a slow broker or a large message never stalls the rest of your loop. Built on chumicro-sockets (TCP + TLS) and chumicro-timing (ticks).


Part of the ChuMicro family: small, focused Python libraries for microcontrollers and laptops. Browse all libraries.

Install

# CircuitPython (after `circup bundle-add ChuMicro/ChuMicro-Bundle`)
circup install chumicro_mqtt

# MicroPython
mpremote mip install github:ChuMicro/ChuMicro-Bundle/chumicro_mqtt

# CPython
pip install chumicro-mqtt

For bundle setup, pre-compiled .mpy bundles, the experimental channel, and details on PyPI naming, see the chumicro INSTALL guide.

Quick example

from chumicro_timing import ticks_ms
from chumicro_mqtt import MQTTClient
from chumicro_wifi import WifiConfig, WifiService

wifi = WifiService(WifiConfig(ssid="home-wifi", password="s3cret"))

# On CircuitPython pass radio=wifi.adapter.radio (the WifiService's board
# radio); the kwarg is ignored on MP / CPython.  from_config builds the
# transport factory: the client dials the broker non-blocking (one connect
# phase per tick) and self-heals after drops.
client = MQTTClient.from_config(
    {"mqtt.broker.host": "broker.example.com", "mqtt.broker.port": 1883},
    radio=wifi.adapter.radio,
)

client.on_message = lambda topic, payload: print(topic, payload)
client.connect()

# Drive from a tick loop.
while True:
    now = ticks_ms()
    if client.check(now):
        client.handle(now)

QoS 0 + QoS 1 are implemented; QoS 2 raises UnsupportedQoSError. Last-will, retained messages, wildcard topic matching (topic_matches), and a structured oversized-message policy are all built in.

What's included

Symbol Purpose
MQTTClient(socket, *, client_id, ...) Main client. Runner-shaped (check(now_ms)/handle(now_ms)). Topics go on the wire exactly as written.
client.publish(topic, payload, *, qos=0, retain=False, on_publish=None) QoS 0 or 1. Before CONNECTED, the when_disconnected policy applies (queue / raise).
client.subscribe(topic, qos=0, *, on_subscribe=None) Single-topic subscribe. A declaration valid in any state: call it before connect() and the first CONNACK sends it (self-heal reconnects replay it); on_subscribe fires once on the granting SUBACK.
client.unsubscribe(topic, *, on_unsubscribe=None) Mirror of subscribe: retracts the declaration in any state, sends UNSUBSCRIBE when CONNECTED.
client.on_message + topic_matches(topic, pattern) Inbound routing: the catch-all callback plus the public wildcard matcher (+ one segment, # trailing tail).
client.connect() / .disconnect() Lifecycle.
MQTTClient(..., when_disconnected="queue", pre_connect_queue_size=8) Pre-connect publish policy ("queue" / "raise") and the queue bound.
WhenOversized.{DROP_SILENT,DROP_WITH_EVENT,DISCONNECT} Policy for inbound PUBLISHes larger than rx_buffer_size.
ProtocolState.{DISCONNECTED,AWAITING_TRANSPORT,CONNECTING,CONNECTED,FAILED} Lifecycle states. AWAITING_TRANSPORT appears while a transport_factory drives the transport up.
MQTTBackpressureError Raised when an outbound publish overflows max_tx_queue_size (or the pre-connect queue under "queue"). Drain via handle() and retry.
MQTTError / MQTTConnectError / MQTTProtocolError / UnsupportedQoSError Exceptions.
topic_matches(topic, pattern) Public wildcard matcher. Encoder + decoder primitives (encode_publish, encode_varlen, decode_varlen) stay internal to chumicro_mqtt._wire.

Tuning for tick-latency vs throughput

handle() does one recv_into and one packet send per tick (plus, on ticks that dispatched inbound QoS-1 publishes, a single coalesced PUBACK batch), so each call yields back to the runner after a bounded slice of socket work. Three MQTTClient(...) constructor knobs let you trade tick fairness for throughput:

Knob Default What it bounds
recv_budget_per_tick 1024 (bytes) Cap on the single per-tick recv_into call. It binds only when rx_buffer_size exceeds it (each recv is already limited to the RX buffer's free space); with a large RX buffer it keeps a multi-KB inbound PUBLISH arriving across several ticks instead of one long syscall.
max_tx_queue_size 20 packets Hard cap on pending outbound packets. Sized for the runner-shaped sensor profile (publish every N seconds; queue stays near zero). Appending past the cap raises MQTTBackpressureError; protocol-internal traffic (PUBACK responses, retransmits, PINGREQ) bypasses the cap so QoS-1 / keepalive contracts hold. Failed QoS-1 publishes roll back the packet_id allocation cleanly so the id pool isn't leaked on backpressure. Raise for bursty publishers; each slot pins ~8 bytes long-lived on MP / CP.
send_timeout_seconds inherits ack_timeout_seconds (5 s) Maximum time the socket can stay non-writable with a packet queued before the client transitions to FAILED. Re-arms on every successful send: a steady drip of small sends never trips it, only a stalled socket does. Catches NAT-style silent-drops on the outbound path that would otherwise let the queue grow until MQTTBackpressureError.

Where this fits

Depends on chumicro-sockets (TCP + TLS) and chumicro-timing for ticks. Used directly in app code; no other ChuMicro library depends on it.

Platform support

Works on CPython, MicroPython, and CircuitPython.

Examples

Example What it shows
telemetry.py Periodic QoS-1 publish on a real CP/MP board. Brings wifi up, connects to a broker, subscribes to a command topic, publishes a synthetic reading every N seconds while an LED-blink counter verifies the publish never blocks waiting for PUBACK. Reads wifi and broker config from runtime_config.msgpack (chumicro-workspace) with a constants fallback. Broker host and port must be set explicitly; the library refuses to silently dial a third-party broker. Cross-runtime (CP + MP).
bench.py Self-driving validation bench. Deploy it and watch serial: the device runs the scenarios end-to-end (steady inline, oversized drain, oversize-topic, QoS-1 round-trip, sustained burst, keepalive) against a real broker and prints a pass/fail summary table. Used to confirm the library's heap-bounded oversize handling and the two-tier inbound model behave as advertised on a 256 KB-RAM-class board. Optional companion bench_host.py (host-side, needs pip install paho-mqtt) captures the verdict from the broker and can publish a 64 KB hostile payload for extra oversized-tier stress.

Wiring wifi and broker config for the examples

The hardware-facing examples need wifi credentials and a broker host and port. The telemetry example reads [wifi] for credentials and [telemetry] for the broker host, port, and topic, from a runtime_config.msgpack (chumicro-workspace) with a constants fallback in the file. The library itself never reads TOML. It takes a chumicro-sockets socket and goes, so config wiring stays in the application layer.

Memory and leak testing

A host-side suite uses tracemalloc to verify the client doesn't leak across its hot paths: QoS 0 and QoS 1 publish, inbound recv, and subscribe/unsubscribe cycles.

Contributing

Issues, bug reports, and pull requests are welcome, and so is "I ran it on this board and here's what happened", some of the most useful feedback a hardware project can get. Development happens in the ChuMicro repository, whose contributing guide covers setup and the test workflow.

Docs

📖 Stable docs · Experimental docs

Find this library

License

MIT

Download files

Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.

Source Distribution

chumicro_mqtt-0.30.1.tar.gz (104.0 kB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distribution

If you're not sure about the file name format, learn more about wheel file names.

chumicro_mqtt-0.30.1-py3-none-any.whl (26.8 kB view details)

Uploaded Python 3

File details

Details for the file chumicro_mqtt-0.30.1.tar.gz.

File metadata

  • Download URL: chumicro_mqtt-0.30.1.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 104.0 kB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? Yes
  • Uploaded via: twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14

File hashes

Hashes for chumicro_mqtt-0.30.1.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 18da6e4aa295d99de65e081f342e52d95d29edee10886fdac998c1c2ffbc2d9f
MD5 471e9fd210dadbf21b1226002602a7e5
BLAKE2b-256 10c9ebb2257f1b1b0861b3efecc7331e569f149c5327256c81fc7c22c61e08de

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for chumicro_mqtt-0.30.1.tar.gz:

Publisher: promote.yml on ChuMicro/ChuMicro

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

File details

Details for the file chumicro_mqtt-0.30.1-py3-none-any.whl.

File metadata

  • Download URL: chumicro_mqtt-0.30.1-py3-none-any.whl
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 26.8 kB
  • Tags: Python 3
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? Yes
  • Uploaded via: twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14

File hashes

Hashes for chumicro_mqtt-0.30.1-py3-none-any.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 6776194a9930af0a1b966dcdc1ebf00f0761903db64cea3117b37a72782f2f0a
MD5 65b0fa1f5d838343cb5bd146a66f8381
BLAKE2b-256 2c1fb231dc1808e3b7b1a83b848b38d079b985ffbc3a74aca4a876a96e5dcbce

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for chumicro_mqtt-0.30.1-py3-none-any.whl:

Publisher: promote.yml on ChuMicro/ChuMicro

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

0.30.3

2 files

0.30.2

2 files

This release

0.30.1 This release

2 files

0.30.0

2 files

0.28.2

2 files

0.28.1

2 files

0.28.0

2 files

Anthropic, PBC Visionary sponsor Bloomberg Visionary sponsor Hudson River Trading Visionary sponsor Meta Visionary sponsor NVIDIA Visionary sponsor Microsoft Sustainability sponsor Depot Continuous Integration AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page