Arduino Community Edition Intellisense

Fix intellisense for Arduino Community Edition

Requirements

• Visual Studio Code
• Arduino Community Edition plugin

Supported devices

• AVR: avr-g++ (Uno, Mega, etc.)
• ARM Cortex-M: arm-none-eabi-g++ (Uno R4, Zero, MKR, RP2040, etc.)
• ESP32: xtensa-esp32-elf-g++ (ESP32 series)
• ESP8266: xtensa-lx106-elf-g++ (ESP8266 series)
• RISC-V: riscv32-esp-elf-g++ (ESP32-C3, CH32V, etc.)

Installation

Mac OS (Apple silicon)

Install arduino-cli

brew install arduino-cli

Initalise arduino-cli config

arduino-cli config init

Edit ~/Library/Arduino15/arduino-cli.yaml

directories:
  data: ~/Library/Arduino15
  downloads: ~/Library/Arduino15/staging
  user: ~/.arduino-cli

Open VS-CODE user preferences (settings.json)

{
  "arduino.useArduinoCli": true,
  "arduino.analyzeOnOpen": false,
  "arduino.analyzeOnSettingChange": false,
  "arduino.path": "/opt/homebrew/bin",
  "arduino.commandPath": "arduino-cli",
}

Run

arduino-cli core install

Windows installation (With powershell)

Download https://downloads.arduino.cc/arduino-cli/arduino-cli_latest_Windows_64bit.zip

Create a new folder then drag the file to C:\Program Files\Arduino CLI\

Open VS-CODE user preferences (settings.json)

{
  "arduino.useArduinoCli": true,
  "arduino.analyzeOnOpen": false,
  "arduino.analyzeOnSettingChange": false,
  "arduino.path": "C:\\Program Files\\Arduino CLI",
  "arduino.commandPath": "arduino-cli.exe"
}

Open powershell as an administrator and run

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("Path", $env:Path + ";C:\Program Files\Arduino CLI", "Machine")

Run

arduino-cli core install

Arduino libraries

Install libraries

Hit Cmd + Shift + P and type >Arduino: Library Manager.

Install boards

Hit Cmd + Shift + P and type >Arduino: Board Manager

Error?

Try including Arduino.h in your .ino file

#include <Arduino.h>

Custom settings

If the extension isn't working, try adding a custom path to your boards compiler in vscode user settings.json

Windows specific example

"arduinoIntelliSense.compilerOverrides": {
  "arm-none-eabi": [
    "C:\\Users\\X\\AppData\\Local\\Arduino15\\Packages\\arduino\\tools\\arm-none-eabi-gcc\\7-2017q4\\lib\\gcc\\arm-none-eabi\\7.2.1\\include",
    "C:\\Users\\X\\AppData\\Local\\Arduino15\\Packages\\arduino\\tools\\arm-none-eabi-gcc\\7-2017q4\\arm-none-eabi\\include"
  ],
  "avr": [
    "C:\\Users\\X\\AppData\\Local\\Arduino15\\packages\\arduino\\tools\\avr-gcc\\9.2.0-arduino3\\avr\\include"
  ]
}

Mac specific example

"arduinoIntelliSense.compilerOverrides": {
  "arm-none-eabi": [
    "~/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/tools/arm-none-eabi-gcc/7-2017q4/lib/gcc/arm-none-eabi/7.2.1/include"
  ],
  "avr": [
    "~/Library/Arduino15/packages/arduino/tools/avr-gcc/9.2.0-arduino3/avr/include"
  ]
}