reachpy 0.1.0

Python-native robotics framework built on ROS2

ReachPy 🚀

ReachPy is a modern Python framework built to dramatically improve the Developer Experience (DX) for robotics engineers using ROS 2.

Building robotics applications in ROS 2 shouldn't mean wrestling with boilerplate, complex build pipelines, or rigid message compilation. ReachPy aims to provide a more Pythonic, intuitive, and dynamic interface to the ROS 2 ecosystem, letting you focus on writing robot logic rather than fighting the middleware.

✨ Why ReachPy?

While rclpy provides the standard bindings for ROS 2, the workflow often requires dropping down to C++ build tools (colcon, CMake) just to define custom data structures. ReachPy is being built to bridge this gap, offering dynamic runtime features powered by a high-performance Rust backend.

📦 Core Components

Dynamic Messaging (reachpy_messages)

At the core of ReachPy is our custom message serialization engine, written in Rust (via PyO3).

Instead of writing .msg files, recompiling your workspace, and sourcing environments just to add a new field to a message, reachpy_messages allows you to define, serialize, and deserialize native ROS 2 Common Data Representation (CDR) bytes on the fly.

• Dynamic Schema Registry: Register complex nested types, arrays, and primitives entirely at runtime.
• Native CDR Support: Outputs perfectly aligned Little-Endian bytes that are 100% compatible with standard ROS 2 nodes.
• Blazing Fast: Offloads the heavy lifting of byte-packing to Rust, ensuring your Python nodes stay performant.

🚀 Quick Start (Preview)

Note: ReachPy is currently in active development.

import reachpy
from reachpy.messages import MessageSchema, FieldSchema, FieldType

# 1. Define a ROS 2 compatible message entirely in Python
schema = MessageSchema(
    name="RobotWaypoint",
    fields=[
        FieldSchema("x", FieldType.Float64),
        FieldSchema("y", FieldType.Float64),
        FieldSchema("is_active", FieldType.Bool)
    ]
)

# 2. Register it dynamically (no CMake or colcon build required!)
reachpy.messages.register_schema("RobotWaypoint", schema)

# 3. Serialize directly to ROS 2 CDR bytes to send over the wire
cdr_payload = reachpy.messages.serialize("RobotWaypoint", [15.2, -7.8, True])

🛠️ Building from Source

ReachPy uses Rust for its performance-critical extensions. You will need Rust and Python 3.8+ installed.

# Build and install the Rust extension locally
maturin develop --release