blackmagic-debug/blackmagic

Black Magic Debug is an open-source debugger for microcontrollers, specifically targeting ARM Cortex and RISC-V processors. Microcontrollers are small chips found in embedded devices like circuit boards, sensors, and custom hardware, and debugging them requires specialized tools to inspect what the chip is doing while it runs. The project works in two forms. The first is firmware that runs on a small hardware device called the Black Magic Probe, a USB dongle that physically connects to your microcontroller and bridges between your development computer and the chip being debugged. The second is the Black Magic Debug App (BMDA), a program that runs on your computer and communicates with a variety of existing debug probe hardware, including ST-Link, J-Link, and CMSIS-DAP compatible probes. Both forms expose a GDB server, where GDB is the standard command-line debugger used with C and C++ code. A notable feature is that the tool requires no configuration files and auto-detects the connected target chip. When you connect your probe and ask it to scan, it identifies which chip is attached and configures itself accordingly. This is designed to reduce the setup time that often frustrates developers working with embedded hardware. The project supports debugging over both JTAG and SWD, which are the two standard physical protocols used to communicate with microcontroller debug interfaces. A companion tool called bmpflash handles programming of external SPI Flash memory chips. Building the firmware requires a cross-compilation toolchain for ARM, and the project uses the Meson build system. The BMDA application builds with standard system compilers and dependencies. Both paths are documented in detail in the README, including OS-specific notes for Linux, macOS, and BSD systems.