micro:bit Companion (Codespaces)

The half of the micro:bit v2 Flasher that lives inside a GitHub Codespace.

The flasher is a web extension: it runs in your browser, where the USB port is. A Codespace can install extensions into its container automatically, but not into your browser — except by asking. This extension is installed into the container by the course template's devcontainer.json; when the Codespace opens, it asks VS Code to install the flasher, and VS Code puts it in the browser. You then plug the board in and press Ctrl+F5.

On your own machine it does something else: it runs python3 mb.py boards --watch next to the board and relays what that reports -- the micro:bits plugged in, their serial output, the port's state -- to the flasher's Serial view, and passes the view's requests (read this board, stop, send a line) back. The flasher runs in a host without USB even on a desktop; this one runs where the ports are.

If that ever fails, run micro:bit: Install the flasher in this browser from the command palette. In desktop VS Code it does nothing: flash with python3 mb.py flash there.

It is also the Codespace end of F5. Cortex-Debug starts arm-eabi-gdb inside the Codespace; this extension opens a loopback port for it and forwards each gdb packet to the flasher in your browser, where the board is. The template's launch configuration says pyocd, which is right on a local machine; in the browser it is steered at that port automatically.

Made for the Ada micro:bit course template.