To build the example applications, a toolchain based on either CMake or SEGGER Embedded Studio is required. Install instructions are provided for Windows and Debian/Ubuntu. The steps should be similar for other platforms.

SEGGER Embedded Studio

Please see the SEGGER Embedded Studio website for download and installation instructions.

Python

Python is not required to build the mesh stack and examples, but it is required when working with DFU, the Interactive PyACI, generating SEGGER Embedded Studio projects and when building documentation. The nRF5 SDK for Mesh uses Python 3, however, the nrfutil tool used for transferring firmware images over serial requires Python 2.7.

Development tools

For programming nRF5x devices, using nrfjprog is recommended. It is available in the nRFx Command Line Tools for Windows and nRFx Command Line Tools for Linux (64-bit).

CMake based setup

CMake is a build management system used for managing an environment that is independent of the compiler and build system used. Version 3.6 or above is required by the mesh stack.

The following tools must be installed:

CMake
A toolchain. Supported toolchaings are the arm-none-eabi-gcc toolchain and the armcc v5 toolchain. The armcc v5 toolchain is also provided by Keil and comes bundled with the Keil uVision IDE.
A build system. CMake supports a range of build systems, e.g., Ninja and make.

Instructions for how to install these tools are provided for the following platforms:

If you want to build the documentation, make sure that the following tools are installed and available from the command line:

See the tools' websites for installation instructions.