Moving an application to a west workspace doesn't work

[Tony]

I am using VSCode with nRF extension with the latest 2.9.1 SDK.

I have been working on an application for bluetooth for the 54L15-DK.

I want to do a custom sensor driver and from what I was reading it might be easier to do this if my applicaiton is part of a west workspace.

So I used the command pallet to do that in the folder of my application.

When it is done I see my application is now in a folder called application.

My build configuration is gone, however, so I add a new one. After selecting my options which is that DK and debug mode I get the following error:

Building application
west build --build-dir /Users/tpitman/Projects/Holley/TPMS/BLETPMSBridge/application/build /Users/tpitman/Projects/Holley/TPMS/BLETPMSBridge/application --pristine --board nrf54l15dk/nrf54l15/cpuapp -- -DNCS_TOOLCHAIN_VERSION=NONE -DCONFIG_DEBUG_OPTIMIZATIONS=y -DCONFIG_DEBUG_THREAD_INFO=y

usage: west [-h] [-z ZEPHYR_BASE] [-v] [-V] <command> ...
west: unknown command "build"; workspace /Users/tpitman/Projects/Holley/TPMS/BLETPMSBridge does not define this extension command -- try "west help"

I have tried making a brand new copy of a sample and doing the same thing and get the same error.

What do I do now? I creates the build folder and a single file called .vscode-nrf-connect.json, but nothing else and I can't do anything with it at this point.

I am totally stuck now and my app is screwed.

[Sigurd Hellesvik]

Hi,

Do you use windows or linux?

How did you initialize the workspace?

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik

[Tony]

I am on MacOS.

I have a working app that was created using the Create App from Sample in VSCode.

I then wanted to turn it into a west workspace. In the nRF extension view I hit the Manage SDKs in the upper left. Then I chose manage west workspace with shows this option:

I chose that one and it moved my app into a subfolder and created the west workspace around it.

the build folder still exists, but on the nRF extension view the build configuration didn't show up any more, so I chose to create a new build config and it did and that is when I get the error above.

I then deleted all build folders, closed VSCode, opened it again and created a new build config from scratch. I still get that error.

[Sigurd Hellesvik]

Did you get a button in the bottom right corner that says "Update Workspace"?

If so, try to click that.

If not, try to open your workspace in a terminal:

and use the command "west update".

Does that fix this?

[Tony]

I already tried the Update West and that didn't help.

I ended up starting all over and can't remember the exact steps, but now have a west workspace and my sample base app in it. Sorry I can't remember what all I did.

I suggest maybe you try the steps I took which is to create a new app (not workspace) from the Bluetooth Peripheral sample. Then try to turn it into a west workspace using the menu item.

If it works for you to do that, then we can close this ticket as a one off issue.

[Sigurd Hellesvik]

I get an error as well. Can you watch this and confirm that I do the same as you, and if the error is similar?

[Tony]

It looks like your error might be different than the one I am getting. If you look at my original post in this thread you can see the error. It starts with:

west: Unknown command "build"....

It probably doesn't matter, but I noticed you chose 2.9.0 and I am using 2.9.1...

[Sigurd Hellesvik]

I will report this command to our VS Code team.

As a workaround:
I suggest that you try to follow our course on Lesson 7 – Device driver model on how to set up the workspace from the CLI instead of using the VS Code functionality.

Then try to open the sample from VS Code by opening the folder of that sample.
Verify from the build logs that it uses your new workspace to build instead of another SDK install.

What do you think about this workaround?