hdl-ip-packager 0.4.0

An IP packager and dependency manager for HDL (Verilog/VHDL/SystemVerilog) design reuse.

HDL IP Packager

A package manager and dependency resolver for HDL IP cores — bringing the ergonomics of pip / npm / cargo / docker pull to Verilog, VHDL, and SystemVerilog design reuse. Built in Python 3.11+.

Project status: pre-alpha / foundation. The versioning, identity (VLNV), and manifest layers are implemented and tested; resolution, packaging, and registries are designed and stubbed. See docs/progress_tracker.md for exactly what is done versus planned, and docs/architecture.md for the design.

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Why

Hardware teams re-use IP constantly, but sharing it is still mostly manual: copy files, hand-track versions, hope the dependency you vendored matches the one your colleague used. Software solved this with package managers. The mature HDL attempts (FuseSoC, Bender, Orbit, IP-XACT/IEEE 1685, vendor catalogs) each got part of the way. This project distills the state of the art into one tool — see the research write-up in docs/research/state_of_the_art.md.

Features

Implemented today:

• VLNV identity — cores are named vendor:library:name:version (the IP-XACT convention), so names are globally meaningful and collision-resistant.
• Semantic versioning — full SemVer 2.0.0 parsing/precedence plus a constraint grammar (^, ~, >=, <, ranges, *) for dependency specs.
• Manifest (ip.toml) — a TOML manifest per core declaring identity, metadata, filesets, dependencies, and build targets.
• Dependency resolver — backtracking, newest-compatible resolution to one Vlnv per package (fail-on-conflict, pre-release-aware).
• Lockfile (ip.lock) — a deterministic, verifiable record of a resolve (exact VLNVs + source + SHA-256), written by hdlpkg resolve.
• Content-addressed cache + registries — a SHA-256-keyed local cache with verify-on-read, fed by local-directory and HTTP registry backends; hdlpkg install resolves and fetches dependencies into it.
• Packaging + distribution — a deterministic .ipkg artifact with pack, append-only publish (with yank), and pull (fetch by VLNV into the cache).
• CLI (hdlpkg) — info, validate, init, resolve, install, pack, publish, pull, and yank work today; the rest is wired and reports planned status.

Designed and on the roadmap (see the progress tracker):

• Additional registries (Git-backed channel, OCI artifact registry).
• Tool-flow generation (EDAM) and IP-XACT export for Vivado/other-tool interop.

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Requirements

Dependency	Version
Python	3.11+ (uses stdlib tomllib)
OS	Windows, Linux, macOS (pure Python)
Runtime deps	none yet (kept minimal by design)

Install

# From a clone, install in editable mode with the dev/test toolchain:
python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"

This puts the hdlpkg command on your PATH and installs pytest, ruff, mypy, and pre-commit. Enable the local git hooks (ruff + mypy on commit) once with:

pre-commit install

Usage

hdlpkg --help                 # show all commands
hdlpkg init --vendor acme --library comm --name uart   # scaffold a starter ip.toml
hdlpkg info ip.toml           # print the parsed identity, deps, filesets, targets
hdlpkg validate ip.toml       # parse + validate a manifest (exit 0 if OK)
hdlpkg resolve ip.toml --search ../cores   # resolve deps to a deterministic ip.lock
hdlpkg install ip.toml --search ../cores   # resolve + fetch deps into the cache
hdlpkg pack ip.toml                         # build a distributable .ipkg
hdlpkg publish ip.toml --registry ../reg    # publish into a local registry
hdlpkg pull acme:common:fifo:1.0.0 --registry ../reg --output ./fifo
python -m hdl_ip_packager info   # same CLI, invoked as a module

A minimal ip.toml:

[package]
vendor  = "acme"
library = "comm"
name    = "uart"
version = "1.2.0"

[dependencies]
"acme:common:fifo" = "^1.0.0"

[filesets.rtl]
files = ["rtl/uart_top.sv"]
type  = "systemVerilogSource"

[targets.sim]
toolflow = "verilator"
filesets = ["rtl"]
top      = "uart_top"

Two complete, working cores live under examples/ — a FIFO (acme:common:fifo) and a UART (acme:comm:uart) that depends on it:

hdlpkg info examples/uart/ip.toml
hdlpkg validate examples/fifo/ip.toml
hdlpkg resolve examples/uart/ip.toml --search examples   # writes examples/uart/ip.lock

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Tests

The suite uses pytest with a scalable, marker-based layout and a foldable summary report. From the repo root:

pytest                                   # run everything (with the local summary)
pytest -m unit                           # only fast unit tests
pytest -m "not integration"              # skip filesystem/integration tests
pytest --cov=hdl_ip_packager --cov-report=term-missing   # with coverage

# Produce the JUnit XML + the rendered Markdown report (what CI shows):
pytest --junitxml=test-results.xml
python scripts/render_test_summary.py --title "Test results"

See tests/README.md for how the suite is organized and how to add new test modules. CI runs the suite on every push/PR and renders the summary into the GitHub Actions run page.

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Documentation

Full technical documentation lives in docs/ and is published as a site at https://germanbravolopez.github.io/hdl-ip-packager/ (built from docs/ by .github/workflows/docs.yml on every push to main). To preview it locally:

pip install -e ".[docs]"
mkdocs serve

Document	Description
AI agent instructions	Start here if you are an AI agent or new contributor — briefing, file map, rules
Architecture	Module map, manifest/lockfile design, data flow, roadmap
State of the art	Research survey of package managers (pip/npm/cargo/docker) and HDL tools (FuseSoC, IP-XACT, Orbit, Bender)
Progress tracker	What is done, in progress, and planned
Quick-find index	Every file, concept, and topic

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Development workflow

This project follows the same branch model as its sibling projects: never commit directly to main. Work happens on a branch and merges via pull request.

1. Branch off main (e.g. git checkout -b feature/resolver).
2. Implement with tests. Keep docs in sync as you go — run the /update-docs checklist (docs/progress_tracker.md, docs/architecture.md, docs/INDEX.md, and this README if user-visible behaviour changed).
3. Before merging, the branch must be green: pytest, ruff check ., and mypy all pass. The pre-commit hooks (pre-commit install) run ruff + mypy on each commit so these are caught locally before CI.
4. Open a PR into main and merge with a merge commit.

Releasing

Releases are tag-driven. Bump [project].version in pyproject.toml, then push a matching X.Y.Z tag: .github/workflows/release.yml builds the wheel + sdist and publishes them to PyPI via OIDC trusted publishing. A guard (scripts/check_release_version.py) fails the run if the tag and the packaged version disagree, so the tag is the single source of truth for the published version. (One-time: register the repo as a PyPI trusted publisher and create the pypi environment.)

See docs/ai_agent_instructions.md for the full agent obligations and coding conventions.

License

MIT © 2026 German Bravo Lopez.