Apio's terminology

  • APIO_DEBUG - An environment variable that enables debug output during command execution. Accepts values from 1 to 10, where 10 is the most verbose.

  • Apio home - The directory where Apio stores its profile file. Defaults to ~/.apio, but can be changed using the APIO_HOME environment variable as done during the automated tests.

  • Apio packages dir - The directory where Apio stores its installed packages. Defaults to ~/.apio/packages, but can be changed using the APIO_PACKAGES environment variable as done during the automated tests.

  • ApioContext - A key Apio class instantiated at the start of each command. It provides access to Apio's resources and project and profile information.

  • Board - Defines an FPGA board, either in apio/resources/boards.jsonc or a project-local boards.jsonc file.

  • Click - A third-party Python library for building command-line applications with subcommands. It handles Apio's command tree, argument parsing, and help text. Click commands are functions named cli and are configured using decorators.

  • Drivers - OS drivers that may be required for programming some FPGA boards. Missing drivers can prevent board detection by apio upload or apio devices list. Install them with apio drivers install.

  • FPGA - Defines an FPGA device, either in apio/resources/fpgas.jsonc or a project-local fpgas.jsonc file.

  • Invoke - A third-party Python tool used to run development tasks defined in tasks.py. For example, invoke check runs comprehensive pre-submit tests.

  • MkDocs - An open-source tool for publishing Apio's documentation to GitHub Pages. Content is stored in mkdocs.yml and the docs directory. It is published automatically via a GitHub workflow.

  • Packages - Tools such as Yosys that Apio manages. Packages are downloaded and stored under ~/.apio/packages and are managed using the apio packages command. Some packages are cross-platform, while others are platform-specific.

  • Platforms - The operating systems that Apio supports. To list them, run apio info platforms.

  • Profile - An Apio class that abstracts the Apio profile file, typically located at ~/.apio/profile.json.

  • Programmer - Defines an FPGA programming tool, either in apio/resources/programmers.jsonc or a project-local programmers.jsonc file.

  • Project - An Apio class that abstracts the project configuration defined in the apio.ini file.

  • Protocol Buffers - A Google-developed open-source language/tool for serializing structured data. Apio uses it to communicate with the SCons subprocess. Definitions are in apio/common/proto/apio.proto and should be recompiled via update-protos.sh when modified.

  • Remote config - A .jsonc configuration file stored in the Apio GitHub repository under remote-config. Apio occasionally fetches this file to check for updated package versions.

  • Resources - Apio configuration items stored in .jsonc files in the apio/resources directory. These include definitions for FPGAs, programmers, and boards supported by Apio. Users can add custom resource files in their project directories, e.g., a boards.jsonc file for a custom board.

  • Rich - A third-party Python library for managing Apio's terminal output, including colored text and data tables.

  • SCons - A third-party Python 'make' like build tool used to run Apio project operations incrementally. SCons prevents redundant operations such as repeating Yosys synthesis or Nextpnr place-and-route. Apio invokes SCons as a subprocess only for tasks requiring incremental builds.

  • Workflows - GitHub Actions workflows stored in the .github/workflows directory of Apio repositories.