Installation

The nRF Connect SDK is a combination of software developed by Nordic Semiconductor and open source projects, hosted as Git repositories in the nrfconnect GitHub organization. These repositories and their versions form the SDK’s code base and are managed using Zephyr’s West tool.

When you install the nRF Connect SDK, you set up the following SDK structure:

The simplified nRF Connect SDK repository structure

All repositories with the prefix sdk contain the nRF Connect SDK firmware and code. You can read more about repository types and what they include in the nRF Connect SDK code base section of the documentation.

Each repository has a revision, which is determined by the current revision of the main repository sdk-nrf. This repository is the manifest repository, because it contains the SDK’s west manifest file that lists all the SDK’s repositories and their revisions (which is also listed on the nRF Connect SDK repository revisions page).

To set up the nRF Connect SDK, use one of the following installation methods:

• Install the nRF Connect SDK automatically using nRF Connect for Desktop. This will install all the requirements, including the Visual Studio Code and the nRF Connect for Visual Studio Code extension, which is recommended for creating and building applications.

• Install the nRF Connect SDK toolchain manually. This is an option if you have any issues when installing the nRF Connect SDK automatically.

Note

If you want to go through a dedicated training to familiarize yourself with the basic functionalities of the nRF Connect SDK, enroll in the nRF Connect SDK Fundamentals course in the Nordic Developer Academy.

Subpages:

• Requirements
  • Supported operating systems
  • nRF Connect SDK toolchain
• Installing automatically
  • Install prerequisites
  • Install Toolchain Manager
  • Install the nRF Connect SDK
  • Set up the preferred building method
• Installing manually
  • Update your operating system
  • Install the required tools
  • Install west
  • Get the nRF Connect SDK code
  • Install additional Python dependencies
  • Install the Zephyr SDK
  • Install nRF Connect for VS Code extension
  • Set up the command-line build environment
• Updating repositories and tools
  • Updating the repositories
  • Updating nRF Connect for VS Code extension
  • Updating toolchain in Toolchain Manager
  • Updating west from command line