Topo

The Topo extension makes it easy for application developers to deploy containers to Arm-based edge devices running Linux, including systems with additional remote processors such as Cortex-M or Cortex-R.

Features include:

Target management: Connect to targets over SSH, inspect target status, and check target compatibility.
Example discovery: Discover Topo Templates for your target.
Configure projects: Topo Templates become standard Docker Compose projects, configured for your use case.
Deployment: Build and deploy projects to your target.
Container actions: Manage individual containers within a deployment.

Who is this for?

You just got a board and want to see what it can do. Topo scans your target and finds Topo Templates that showcase its capabilities, from running an LLM to comparing SIMD performance. Each one deploys in minutes and is a real Compose project you can learn from or build on.

You want a faster edit-build-deploy loop. Build on your laptop and deploy to a Pi or Jetson over SSH. Rebuilds are incremental, so after the first deploy you're often iterating in seconds.

You have a heterogeneous device and want to use all of it. Your board has remote processors like a Cortex-M that normally need separate toolchains and manual firmware loading. Topo and Remoteproc Runtime let you orchestrate the whole device as one Docker Compose project.

Not sure what these terms mean? The glossary defines Topo's core concepts.

Requirements

Host machine (where this extension will run):

Visual Studio Code v1.101.0 or newer
Docker
Curl

Target machine (the remote Arm system):

Reachable with SSH
Linux on ARM64
Docker

The host and target can be the same system.

Getting Started

Install the extension from the VS Code Marketplace or a .vsix package.
Select a target from the Target view in the Topo activity bar container.
Review any missing target dependencies and apply suggested fixes.
Clone a Topo Template from our catalog.
Deploy the configured project to your target.

Target Management

The Target view appears in the Topo activity bar container and shows the currently selected target where deployments run.

Select a Target

Click Select a target in the Target view title bar or status bar to open the target picker. The picker shows saved targets and hosts from your SSH config. Select an existing target, choose an SSH config host, or type an SSH destination (for example root@192.168.1.1) to add and select a new target.

Remove a Target

Saved targets that do not come from SSH config can be removed from the picker with the inline trash button.

Target Tree

The selected target in the tree shows:

Item	Description
Processing Domains	Processing domains on the target, including the primary OS and remote processors.
Services	Running or stopped containers grouped by processing domain, with state icons.
Dependencies	Required target components and driver health-check issues shown for the target.

Target Actions

Use the inline buttons on the selected target row to access these actions:

Command	Description
Unselect Target	Clear the active target without deleting it.
Fix Issues	Select and run available fixes for target dependency issues.

Dependency Actions

Use the inline Fix button on a fixable dependency item to run the executable fix command reported by the Topo health check.

Container Actions

Use the inline buttons on a service in the Target tree to manage individual containers:

Command	Description
Start	Start a stopped container.
Stop	Stop a running container.
Delete	Remove a container.
Open Container Shell	Open a VS Code terminal connected to a running container in the target's primary OS.

Deploy and Stop

Deploy or stop a project on the selected target. A deploy operation builds container images, transfers them to the target, and starts services. You can trigger either operation from:

Running Topo: Deploy from the Command Palette, then selecting a compose.yaml file from the workspace.
Right-clicking compose.yaml in the Explorer or editor tab and selecting Topo Deploy or Topo Stop.

Project Management

Initialize a Project

Use the Topo: Initialize Project command from the Command Palette to create a new Topo project in the current workspace.

Clone a Project

Three clone commands are available from the Command Palette:

Command	Description
Topo: Clone Remote Project	Clone from a Git repository.
Topo: Clone Template Project	Clone from a curated list of Arm Templates.
Topo: Clone Local Project	Clone from a local directory.

After cloning, the extension offers to open the project in the current window, a new window, or add it to the workspace.

Protocol Handler

The extension supports a URI scheme for cloning projects from external links:

vscode://arm.topo/clone?source=git:https://github.com/example/repo

Host Health Check

The Host view appears in the Topo activity bar container and shows host dependency health for tools such as Docker and SSH. Missing or unhealthy dependencies are shown in the tree.

Use the refresh button in the Host view title bar to reload host dependency health.

Commands

Commands available from the Command Palette:

Command	Description
`Topo: Initialize Project`	Initialize a new Topo project in the workspace.
`Topo: Clone Remote Project`	Clone a project from a Git repository.
`Topo: Clone Template Project`	Clone a project from an Arm Template.
`Topo: Clone Local Project`	Clone a project from a local directory.
`Topo: Deploy`	Select and deploy a compose file to the target.

Additional commands are available through inline buttons in the Target and Host tree views.

Settings

Setting	Type	Default	Description
`topo.loggingVerbosity`	`off` \| `error` \| `warn` \| `info` \| `debug`	`warn`	Control the logging verbosity of the extension.

Development

See the Development Guide for instructions on building, testing, and packaging the extension from source.

Submit Feedback or Report Issues

To submit feedback or report issues, please use GitHub Issues in the extension repository.

License

Apache 2.0