exoclaw-firmware 0.4.0

Deployable exoclaw image for MicroPython boards (ESP32-S3 and friends)

exoclaw-firmware

Deployable exoclaw image for MicroPython boards. Bundles core exoclaw + the MP-compatible plugin set (conversation, OpenAI provider) + board-specific boot wrappers, so flashing one tree gets you a chip that can hold a conversation with an LLM.

This is the equivalent of exoclaw-nanobot for the chip target — where nanobot is "what you run on a server", exoclaw-firmware is "what you flash to a board".

Supported boards

Board	RAM	Status	Notes
ESP32-S3 (8 MB PSRAM)	8 MB	Supported	Reference target; SD card recommended.
ESP32 (4 MB)	4 MB	Should work	Tighter; turn off any optional plugins.
Raspberry Pi Pico W	264 KB	Unlikely	RAM budget too small for an LLM agent loop.

Adding a new board: copy boards/esp32_s3/ to boards/<your_board>/, adapt the boot.py for that platform's WiFi / SD / clock APIs.

Quickstart (ESP32-S3)

1. Wire up an SD card (optional but recommended for session storage). Default pins in boards/esp32_s3/boot.py: sclk=12, mosi=11, miso=13, cs=10.
2. Flash MicroPython 1.27+ to the board (out of scope for this package — see the MicroPython downloads page).
3. Copy boards/esp32_s3/secrets.py.example to boards/esp32_s3/secrets.py and fill in WIFI_SSID, WIFI_PASSWORD, OPENAI_API_KEY.
4. Stage and flash:

   cd packages/exoclaw-firmware
   mise run flash
   

5. Reset the board (or mise run repl to watch output). On first boot you should see boot: SD mounted, boot: WiFi up, boot: clock synced, then a you> prompt — type a message and press enter to chat with the agent over USB serial.

What's in the flash image

The mise run stage task assembles the deployable tree under .stage/:

.stage/
├── boot.py                    # WiFi + SD + NTP setup
├── main.py                    # runs run_serial_chat() (USB-CDC chat loop)
├── secrets.py                 # gitignored; your credentials
├── exoclaw/                   # core (with _cpython.py stripped)
├── exoclaw_conversation/      # MP-compatible conversation plugin
├── exoclaw_provider_openai/   # MP-compatible OpenAI provider
└── exoclaw_firmware/          # this package's app.py

Files matching _cpython.py are stripped at stage time — they hold CPython-only implementations that the MP runtime never imports. Same trick the core MP coverage runner uses.

Channels

The default channel after flash is USB-CDC serial. Plug the board into a host, open mpremote repl (or screen /dev/cu.usbmodem* 115200), hit reset, and you'll see:

boot: WiFi up: ('192.168.…', …)
boot: clock synced via NTP
main: ready — type a message and press enter (Ctrl-C to exit)
you>

Type, press enter, get a response. No chat-platform tokens, no webhook URLs — just stdin/stdout over USB.

For network-side channels, swap the run_serial_chat call in main.py for your own loop on top of build_agent (which returns a (provider, conversation) pair). Common patterns:

• HTTP long-poll (Telegram-style) — easiest cloud channel; one outbound request per poll cycle.
• MQTT subscriber (umqtt.simple) — IoT-native, integrates with Home Assistant / AWS IoT / HiveMQ.
• HTTP webhook server (asyncio.start_server) — local-network only unless you tunnel.
• WebSocket — single long-lived connection, lower latency than long-poll, needs a WS client.
• BLE GATT — phone companion app pattern, range ~10m.

Pick what fits the deployment. The serial loop stays useful as a debug channel even after you wire a cloud channel.

mise tasks

Task	What it does
mise run stage	Assemble .stage/ from core + plugins + board files.
mise run flash	Copy .stage/ onto the attached board via mpremote.
mise run repl	Drop into a REPL on the board.
mise run run	Exec main.py on the board without flashing.
mise run wipe	Erase the board's filesystem (destructive).