Installing west

West is written in Python 3 and distributed through PyPI. Use pip3 to install or upgrade west:

On Linux:

pip3 install --user -U west

On Windows and macOS:

pip3 install -U west

Note

See Python and pip for additional clarification on using the --user switch.

Afterwards, you can run pip3 show -f west for information on where the west binary and related files were installed.

Once west is installed, you can use it to clone the Zephyr repositories.

Structure

West’s code is distributed via PyPI in a Python package named west. This distribution includes a launcher executable, which is also named west (or west.exe on Windows).

When west is installed, the launcher is placed by pip3 somewhere in the user’s filesystem (exactly where depends on the operating system, but should be on the PATH environment variable). This launcher is the command-line entry point to running both built-in commands like west init, west update, along with any extensions discovered in the workspace.

In addition to its command-line interface, you can also use west’s Python APIs directly. See West APIs for details.

Enabling shell completion

West currently supports shell completion in the following combinations of platform and shell:

  • Linux: bash

  • macOS: bash

  • Windows: not available

In order to enable shell completion, you will need to obtain the corresponding completion script and have it sourced every time you enter a new shell session.

To obtain the completion script you can use the west completion command:

cd /path/to/zephyr/
west completion bash > ~/west-completion.bash

Note

Remember to update your local copy of the completion script using west completion when you update Zephyr.

Next, you need to import west-completion.bash into your bash shell.

On Linux, you have the following options:

  • Copy west-completion.bash to /etc/bash_completion.d/.

  • Copy west-completion.bash to /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/.

  • Copy west-completion.bash to a local folder and source it from your ~/.bashrc.

On macOS, you have the following options:

  • Copy west-completion.bash to a local folder and source it from your ~/.bash_profile

  • Install the bash-completion package with brew:

    brew install bash-completion

    then source the main bash completion script in your ~/.bash_profile:

    source /usr/local/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh

    and finally copy west-completion.bash to /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/.