flashtool

BMP, OpenOCD, and Stlink supported flashing

A cross-platform Electron + Quasar desktop application for flashing and real-time debugging of embedded targets using:

• Black Magic Probe (BMP) — auto-detected via USB VID 1d50 / PID 6018
• ST-Link (v1/v2/v3) — auto-detected via USB VID 0483
• OpenOCD — for nRF and other targets with configurable interface/target configs

Features

• 🔌 Auto-detection of BMP and ST-Link probes (USB serial port scanning)
• ⚡ Flash firmware (.elf / .hex / .bin) using:
  • BMP: arm-none-eabi-gdb with MI2 over extended-remote
  • ST-Link: st-flash CLI or OpenOCD
  • OpenOCD: openocd -c "program … verify reset exit"
• 📡 RTT (Real-Time Transfer) output for all three probe types:
  • BMP: streams the second serial port (MI_01) at 115200 baud after monitor rtt enable
  • ST-Link / OpenOCD: connects to OpenOCD RTT TCP server (port 19021)
• 🪟 Multiple concurrent sessions — open independent RTT feeds per probe simultaneously
• 🖥️ Session tabs with status badges (idle / flashing / RTT active / error)

Prerequisites

Install the relevant flash tools on your PATH:

Probe type	Tool needed
BMP	arm-none-eabi-gdb (ARM GNU Toolchain)
ST-Link (st-flash)	stlink tools
ST-Link / OpenOCD	OpenOCD
OpenOCD target	OpenOCD with your target config

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start development server (Electron)
npm run dev

# Build for production
npm run build

# Run unit tests
npm test

# Lint
npm run lint

Architecture

src/                          # Quasar (Vue 3 + TypeScript) renderer
  components/
    SessionPanel.vue          # Per-session container (probe + flash + RTT)
    ProbeSelector.vue         # Probe auto-detection & selection UI
    FlashPanel.vue            # Flash config & controls
    RttTerminal.vue           # Scrolling RTT output terminal
  composables/
    useSessionIpc.ts          # Bridges Electron IPC events → Pinia store
  stores/sessions.ts          # Pinia store: sessions, RTT lines, flash log
  pages/IndexPage.vue         # Session tabs

src-electron/                 # Electron main process (Node.js)
  electron-main.ts            # IPC handler registration, BrowserWindow
  electron-preload.ts         # contextBridge API exposed to renderer
  services/
    probe-detector.ts         # USB serial scan (BMP VID/PID, STLink VID/PID)
    bmp-service.ts            # BMP flash (GDB batch) + RTT (serial port MI_01)
    stlink-service.ts         # ST-Link flash (st-flash or openocd)
    openocd-service.ts        # OpenOCD flash + RTT TCP socket
    session-manager.ts        # Multi-session lifecycle management

OpenOCD RTT target configuration

For nRF52840 targets with ST-Link, set in the Flash Configuration panel:

• OpenOCD Interface: interface/stlink.cfg
• OpenOCD Target: board/nrf52840dk_nrf52840.cfg

RTT data streams in via TCP port 19021 (OpenOCD RTT server).

BMP RTT

BMP RTT uses the second serial port exposed by the probe (MI_01 / ttyACM1).
The probe streams RTT data automatically after monitor rtt enable is sent to GDB.