# leggedrobotics/ros_best_practices

Best practices, conventions, and tricks for ROS

Repository: https://github.com/leggedrobotics/ros_best_practices
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/ros_best_practices
Homepage: https://rsl.ethz.ch/education-students/lectures/ros.html
Language: C++
License: BSD-3-Clause
License Family: permissive
Topics: ros, robotics, best-practices, conventions
Last push: 2022-01-22T10:50:36+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4258, "days_push": 1684, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1636, forks 419 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:14.672275+00:00)

## What it is
A curated collection of best practices, conventions, and tricks for the Robot Operating System (ROS), maintained by ETH Zurich's Robotic Systems Lab. It includes a wiki-style guide and a ROS package template, with a Foxy branch covering ROS2.

## Use cases
- learn ROS conventions and best practices
- structure a ROS package correctly
- set up a catkin workspace following recommended patterns
- prepare for a robotics course on ROS
- review C++ ROS node coding guidelines
- migrate ROS knowledge to ROS2

## When to choose
- you are starting a new ROS or ROS2 project and want to follow proven conventions
- you are teaching or learning ROS, especially via the ETH Zurich robotics course
- you want a template for well-structured ROS packages

## When to avoid
- you need official, exhaustive ROS documentation rather than a curated summary
- you need a runnable software library or tool rather than guidelines
- you require up-to-date ROS2 coverage without checking the separate Foxy branch

## Facets
- artifact type: learning-resource
- maturity: active
- function: documentation, developer-tools
- domain: robotics, tutorials, developer-tools
- platform: cpp
- tags: ros, ros2, best-practices, conventions, robot-operating-system, catkin, rclcpp, linux, docker

## Member repositories
- leggedrobotics/ros_best_practices (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:14.672275+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:46:58.362079+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/leggedrobotics/ros_best_practices (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:14.672275+00:00, sha 802992230f52)
  - homepage: https://rsl.ethz.ch/education-students/lectures/ros.html (fetched 2026-08-29T11:19:56.220356+00:00, sha b6212b48f7cf)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.