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Renode Artifact

Portable binary distribution of Renode, Antmicro's open-source simulation and virtual development framework for embedded systems, together with renode-test, its Robot Framework based test runner used for integration/implementation testing of simulated firmware. This repository is consumed by the Embedbits Platform Artifact Handler to locate, download, verify, and configure Renode in downstream embedded projects.

This repository is split into three branches/refs by role — the main (master) branch you are reading now holds only this documentation; the handler scripts live on the Core branch, and versioned binaries are published as GitHub Releases anchored to the Bin branch.

Repository contents​

main / master
└── README.md                     ← This document — no other content

Core
└── ArtifactConfig.cmake          ← Renode integration logic (artifact init, version lookup, test helper)

Bin  (anchor branch — no tracked binary files)
└── (empty commits only; each release tag points here)

Role in the platform​

This repository is one of several artifact distributions within the Embedbits platform. The overall flow is:

GitHub (Embedbits)
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Artifact-renode
  main / master →  README only (this document)
  Core          →  ArtifactConfig.cmake
  Bin           →  Anchor branch (empty commits)
  Releases      →  renode-<version>-<platform>.zip + .hash
                    tagged Bin/<version>-<platform>  (platform: Win / Unix)

Renode_Importer.sh publishes each Renode version as a GitHub Release — tagged Bin/<version>-<platform> — rather than as a file committed to the Bin branch. The Bin branch itself only carries empty anchor commits for the release tags to point at.

The Platform Artifact Handler in downstream projects references the Core branch as a Git submodule. At CMake configure time it reads ArtifactConfig.cmake to determine which release to fetch, then downloads and verifies the matching release asset for the current platform.

Branch structure​

Branch / RefContent
main / masterThis README only — no functional content
CoreArtifactConfig.cmake handler script for consuming the artifact
BinAnchor branch only — no binaries are committed here
Release tag Bin/<version>-<platform>GitHub Release carrying the actual .zip binary and its .hash checksum file as release assets, for platform ∈ Win, Unix

Note: The Embedbits Artifact Handler protocol itself is not tied to GitHub Releases — that is simply how the GitHub-hosted importer scripts happen to publish binaries. On a Git host without an equivalent Releases API, the handler also supports packaged binaries committed directly as tracked files on the Bin branch, tagged per version/platform (Bin/<version>-<platform>) instead of uploaded as release assets. The CMake handler resolves either form transparently.

⚠️ No macOS (DarwinARM) releases: as of the current Renode release line, upstream only publishes macOS builds as .dmg disk images, not as a plain tar/zip archive. Renode_Importer.sh therefore does not import a DarwinARM platform until upstream ships a plain archive (or .dmg unpacking support is added to Common.sh).

⚠️ Fetching a release​

Binaries are not stored as tracked files in Bin — clone the Core branch for the handler scripts, and download binaries as release assets for a specific tag instead of cloning the Bin branch.

# Core handler scripts
git clone --branch Core --single-branch --depth=1 <repository_url> renode-core

# Binary + checksum for one specific version/platform (GitHub Release asset)
gh release download Bin/1.16.1-Unix --repo Embedbits/Artifact-renode --pattern "renode-1.16.1-Unix.*"

Included components​

ComponentDescription
renodeMain simulator/CLI: boots and runs simulated hardware platforms, scripting console, GDB server
renode-testRobot Framework test runner: executes .robot integration/implementation test suites against a simulated target and produces XML/HTML reports

Usage​

The artifact is installed automatically during the Artifacts setup phase via:

cmake -P Artifacts/Renode/ArtifactConfig.cmake

The script ensures the Renode binaries are available, unpacks the archive if needed, and adds both tools to the system PATH for subsequent build/test steps.

Handler functions​

renode_ArtifactInit(ARTIFACT_BIN_PATH)

Initializes the artifact: locates the renode and renode-test binaries and exposes them via the RENODE_EXECUTABLE / RENODE_TEST_EXECUTABLE cache variables.

renode_GetArtifactVersion()

Returns the version of the currently resolved Renode binaries (via renode -v).

Renode_AddTest(TEST_NAME ROBOT_FILE)

Registers a CTest test that runs the given .robot suite through renode-test.

Versioning​

Artifact versions correspond directly to official Renode release versions:

1.14.0, 1.15.0, 1.15.3, 1.16.0, 1.16.1, ...

New versions are published by Renode_Importer.sh in the GithubArtifactsHandler repository, which downloads the official Renode portable binaries, packages them as .zip archives with SHA-256 verification, and publishes them as a GitHub Release tagged Bin/<version>-<platform> — the Bin branch itself only advances via an empty anchor commit that the tag points to.

Notes​

  • No installation required — the portable-dotnet builds are self-contained (bundled .NET runtime), no separate .NET/mono install needed on the target machine.
  • Offline use is supported once the artifact is cached locally.
  • In Azure DevOps pipelines, caching the artifact folder is recommended to reduce build time.
  • macOS (DarwinARM) is currently unsupported by the importer — see the note above.

License​

Renode is distributed under the MIT License. For details, see: https://github.com/renode/renode/blob/master/LICENSE

Authors​

Contributions are welcome! Please open a pull request.