In this implementation:

• PlatformIO Core (CLI) is installed in container
• the frameworks, tools, packages, etc. are installed in a host directory

The examples are for Podman but can be used with Docker; just write docker instead of podman (or alias it with alias podman=docker) .

I used this container to build projects mostly for ESP32 with Arduino on the pioarduino community platform .

Container image

# build the image
podman build --build-arg=PLATFORMIO_VERSION=latest -t pio .
# and create the directory for platformio
mkdir -p /data/platformio

Usage

Running the contaner without argument will run a bash shell.

Running the container with arguments will run pio inside the container with the same arguments.

For basics of PlatformIO Core (CLI) see PlatformIO Core's Quick Start.

PlatformIO Core's CLI Guide have all the commands and options.

Examples:

# pio -h
podman run -it --rm pio -h

# pio pkg list
podman run -it --rm \
    -v /data/platformio:/platformio:Z \
    -v "${PWD}":/project:Z \
    pio pkg list

Upload preparation

In Linux you have to install udev rules for your boards / devices.

I prefer to add rules only for the devices that I have (see Non-root access for ST-LINK and USB-to-serial devices if you want more details):

#!/bin/bash

# udev rule for boards with the CP2102 USB-to-serial convertor
sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/70-cp2102.rules > /dev/null <<'EOF'
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="10c4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="ea60", MODE="600", TAG+="uaccess"
EOF

# udev rule for boards with the CH340 USB-to-serial convertor
sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/70-ch340.rules > /dev/null <<'EOF'
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1a86", ATTRS{idProduct}=="7523", MODE="600", TAG+="uaccess"
EOF

# reload udev rules
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
sudo udevadm trigger

but you can add the whole list from PlatformIO (see 99-platformio-udev.rules if you want more details):

# download the rules straight to the destination directory
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/platformio/platformio-core/develop/platformio/assets/system/99-platformio-udev.rules | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/99-platformio-udev.rules

# reload udev rules
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
sudo udevadm trigger

Initialize a project

Initialize a new empty project or update existing with the new data:

# empty initialization
podman run -it --rm -v /data/platformio:/platformio:Z -v "${PWD}":/project:Z \
    pio project init

# or, more specific example:
podman run -it --rm -v /data/platformio:/platformio:Z -v "${PWD}":/project:Z \
    pio project init --board esp32dev --project-option \
        "platform=https://github.com/pioarduino/platform-espressif32/releases/download/stable/platform-espressif32.zip"

These are the pre-configured Boards - also, the list can be obtained with pio boards equivalent podman run -it --rm pio boards

Build workflow

Here is a simple build workflow. Run these commands in the directory where the file platformio.ini is located:

podman run -it --rm -v /data/platformio:/platformio:Z -v "${PWD}":/project:Z pio run

podman run -it --rm -v /data/platformio:/platformio:Z -v "${PWD}":/project:Z \
    --device /dev/ttyUSB0 \
    pio run --target upload

podman run -it --rm -v /data/platformio:/platformio:Z -v "${PWD}":/project:Z \
    --device /dev/ttyUSB0 \
    pio run --target monitor

podman run -it --rm -v /data/platformio:/platformio:Z -v "${PWD}":/project:Z pio run --target clean

License

This repository is licensed under the terms of GNU GPLv3 license. See the LICENSE-GPLv3.txt file.