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2. Setting up your CMake environment and building

Creating a CMakeLists.txt​

At the root of your project, create a CMakeList.txt. Here's one to get you started:

CMakeLists.txt
# Specify a minimum version of CMake
# (this may be lower if you're using a different image than the basis development image)
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.28)

# Declare a project, using C++
project(MyAwesomeRobot LANGUAGES CXX)

# Set some required or useful settings for C++
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 20)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED True)
set(CMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS True)
set(CMAKE_POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE ON)

Now you have a few options, depending on how you are including Basis:

Specify an sibling or external folder to include Basis​

CMakeLists.txt - subdirectories
# Add basis from a sibling directory, additionally specifying a subdirectory underneath
add_subdirectory(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/../basis/ basis)

Use a submodule to include Basis (checked out as basis/)​

CMakeLists.txt - submodule
add_subdirectory(basis)

Use CMake FetchContent to include Basis​

CMakeLists.txt - FetchContent
# This will download basis as part of your cmake configuration
# It will live in build/
# Consider using something like CPM - https://github.com/cpm-cmake/CPM.cmake - if you want better caching behavior
include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(basis
    GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/basis-robotics/basis
    GIT_TAG main # Or your release of choice
    )
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(basis)

The rest of your CMakeLists.txt​

Finally, you will want to add_subdirectory for each subdirectory containing code:

# These may change, depending on how you've arranged your project
add_subdirectory(lib)
add_subdirectory(unit)

Compiling​

Follow these steps to build your project (and the underlying framework)...

From the root directory of your project:

# Create the build directory
mkdir build
# Jump to it
cd build
# Run cmake to generate makefiles
cmake ..

# Every time you want to compile, run make
make -j
# Every time you want to run with 'basis launch', run make install
sudo make install

Running​

Let's ensure that basis is installed properly. You will need three separate terminals (run-env.sh invoked again will open a new shell into your docker container, if you don't want to run tmux or screen)

Start the Coordinator
coordinator
Start Foxglove's bridge
foxglove_bridge
Print the logging topic
basis topic print /log

If you're fast enough with the last command, you should see some output from the logger. Otherwise, either launch Foxglove Studio or relaunch the bridge, and you should get output.

basis@ubuntu:/basis/build$ basis topic print /log
timestamp {
  seconds: 3263274
  nanos: 325340038
}
level: INFO
message: "[1970-02-07 18:27:54.325] [FoxgloveBridge] [info] [foxglove_bridge.cpp:110] [WS] Client 127.0.0.1:57246 connected via /\n"
name: "FoxgloveBridge"
file: "/basis/cpp/plugins/bridges/foxglove/src/foxglove_bridge.cpp"
line: 110

Troubleshooting​

Coming soon, sorry!

Next​

Now that you have a valid basis environment and CMake project, it's time to create your first units.