fprime-gds Setup (uv)

Prerequisites

• Python
• uv

First-time setup

cd CHESS-MCS
uv venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
uv sync

On Linux, run source .venv/bin/activate instead of .\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1.

Subsequent sessions

The virtual environment only needs to be created once. After that, just activate it:

.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

(or source .venv/bin/activate on Linux)

Run

uv run fprime-gds

Open http://127.0.0.1:5000/ and stop with Ctrl+C.

If you see Address already in use, stop old processes and run again.

---

InfluxDB Telemetry Bridge

The InfluxDB telemetry bridge is a GDS plugin that reads simulation data from a running InfluxDB v2 instance and republishes it as F' telemetry channels. This lets you visualize simulation results (from the digital twin) directly in the F' GDS UI — in the Channels, Charts, and Dashboard tabs (Note: Dashboard to-be-implemented).

Prerequisites

• InfluxDB v2 running locally (or reachable over the network)
  • For instructions on setting up Influx DB v2, please see the Installation & Setup section of the Grafana Visualization README (DT repo).
• A bucket containing simulation data (e.g., populated by the digital twin or by uploading a CSV)
• An InfluxDB API token with read access to that bucket
  • The token can be generated from the InfluxDB UI under API Tokens.

Configuration

Create a .env file in the repo root with the InfluxDB credentials:

cat > ~/CHESS-MCS/.env <<'EOF'
INFLUXDB_TOKEN=your-token-here
INFLUXDB_ORG=EST
INFLUXDB_URL=http://localhost:8086
INFLUXDB_BUCKET=NICE
EOF

The <<'EOF' with single quotes around EOF prevents the shell from interpreting special characters (like - or ==) that commonly appear in InfluxDB tokens.

Make sure .env is gitignored so the credentials don't get committed:

echo ".env" >> .gitignore

Run

With a valid .env in place, just start the GDS as usual:

uv run fprime-gds

The plugin starts automatically, polls InfluxDB every 5 seconds (configurable), and publishes new rows as F' telemetry channels. Open http://127.0.0.1:5000/ and check the Channels tab — you should see values under the DeploymentSim.* channels (Altitude, Battery, Mode, etc.).

For live plots as data streams in, use the Charts tab.

Here is an alternative running command:

uv run fprime-gds -n --dictionary <local-path-to-repo>/CHESS-MCS/deployment-sim/dict/LocalTopologyDictionary.xml

Use the longer comand when:

• You have multiple dictionaries and want to pick a specific one
• You're in a different working directory where auto-detection can't find things
• You want to be explicit for reproducibility (e.g., in a script or docs)