Application Development

This user guide provides fundamental information on developing a new application based on the nRF Connect SDK.

Build and Configuration System

The nRF Connect SDK build and configuration system is based on the one from Zephyr, with some additions.

Zephyr’s build and configuration system

Zephyr’s build and configuration system uses the following building blocks as a foundation:

  • CMake, the cross-platform build system generator,

  • Kconfig, a powerful configuration system also used in the Linux kernel,

  • Device Tree, a hardware description language that is used to describe the hardware that the nRF Connect SDK is to run on.

Since the build and configuration system used by the nRF Connect SDK comes from Zephyr, references to the original Zephyr documentation are provided here in order to avoid duplication. See the following links for information about the different building blocks mentioned above:

  • Application Development is a complete guide to application development with Zephyr, including the build and configuration system.

  • CMake Details describes in-depth the usage of CMake for Zephyr-based applications.

  • Kconfig Configuration contains a guide for Kconfig usage in applications.

  • Devicetree Overlays explains how to use Device Tree and its overlays to customize an application’s Device Tree.

nRF Connect SDK additions

The nRF Connect SDK adds some functionality on top of the Zephyr build and configuration system. You must be aware of these additions when you start writing your own applications based on this SDK.

  • The nRF Connect SDK provides an additional boilerplate.cmake that must be included before Zephyr’s in the CMakeLists.txt file of your application:

    include($ENV{ZEPHYR_BASE}/../nrf/cmake/boilerplate.cmake)
include($ENV{ZEPHYR_BASE}/cmake/app/boilerplate.cmake NO_POLICY_SCOPE)

    Since the nRF Connect SDK does not require or provide an environment variable equivalent to ZEPHYR_BASE, you can either create your own or locate the full path in your own CMakeLists.txt. In order to obtain the path to the nrf folder, you can use west:

    execute_process(COMMAND west list -f {abspath} nrf OUTPUT_VARIABLE NRF_BASE
                RESULT_VARIABLE west_list_err OUTPUT_STRIP_TRAILING_WHITESPACE)
if (west_list_err)
  message(FATAL_ERROR "cannot find nrf directory with west")
endif()

include(${NRF_BASE}/cmake/boilerplate.cmake)

  • The nRF Connect SDK build system extends Zephyr’s with support for multi-image builds. You can find out more about these in the Multi-image builds section.

  • The nRF Connect SDK adds a partition manager, responsible for partitioning the available flash memory.

Custom boards

Defining your own board is a very common step in application development, since applications are typically designed to run on boards that are not directly supported by the nRF Connect SDK, given that they are typically custom designs and not available publicly. In order to define your own board, you can use the following Zephyr guides as reference, since boards are defined in the nRF Connect SDK just as they are in Zephyr: