openocd-org/openocd

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: prerelease_only no_license

Adoption not part of the score

2304 stars · 1037 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

OpenOCD (Open On-Chip Debugger) is a command-line tool providing on-chip programming and debugging for embedded systems via JTAG/SWD adapters. It exposes telnet, Tcl, and GDB server interfaces for flashing firmware, single-stepping, breakpoints, and boundary-scan/FPGA programming.

Use cases

• flash firmware onto an STM32 discovery board
• debug embedded ARM firmware with GDB over SWD
• program an FPGA or CPLD via SVF playback
• set breakpoints and single-step a Cortex-M target
• connect GDB to a remote embedded target on localhost:3333
• script chip programming with embedded Tcl
• dump or write internal and NAND flash chips

When to choose

• you need source-level debugging of embedded targets with GNU GDB
• you want a free, widely supported tool for flashing ARM, MIPS, RISC-V, or Xtensa chips
• you need support for many debug adapters like ST-LINK, CMSIS-DAP, FTDI, or Raspberry Pi GPIO
• you want scripted, automated flashing and boundary-scan workflows

When to avoid

• you only need high-level IDE debugging without touching JTAG/SWD details
• your target hardware or adapter is unsupported by OpenOCD's driver list
• you need a graphical debugger UI rather than a command-line server

Facets

cli-tool · maturity active

developer-tools embedded embedded-systems hardware developer-tools windows cli cross-platform jtag swd gdb-server flash-programming boundary-scan embedded-debugging tcl-scripting arm riscv xtensa debugging command-line linux macos

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="openocd-org/openocd")