nRF54L05 without Zephyr/VSCode

RE: nRF54L05 without Zephyr/VSCode

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 06:54:55 GMT

Agree with the conclusions in this thread. Nordic’s own reply basically says: nrf-bm is a stepping stone toward NCS and it still depends on West/Kconfig/Zephyr build plumbing. So if the goal is “self-contained CMSIS/MDK-style project” or “use any compiler/toolchain with a flat folder + macros,” nrf-bm isn’t that today.

The MDK + nrfx approach Emil mentioned is the closest to “pure bare metal,” but as noted it’s just startup + registers + drivers — you don’t get BLE or higher layers for free.

Disclosure: I’m the author of IOcomposer/IOsonata.

I’m working on a different workflow: keep the Nordic vendor layer underneath for nRF54, but make the *application* workflow MCU-centric and C/C++ configured (no Devicetree/Kconfig as the primary config model). IOcomposer generates the project, sets up build + debug, and the optional AI can scaffold a full project (including BLE) with patch-style edits grounded in the actual installed headers.

Demo (unedited): prompt → complete nRF54L15 BLE project → builds → launches debugger:
https://youtu.be/LR2vYtMeC8A
Try/install: https://iocomposer.io

If you test it, even a short reply helps:
- Host OS
- Board / chip
- What you tried
- First error line + snippet (if it fails)

RE: nRF54L05 without Zephyr/VSCode

Emil Lenngren — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 14:38:43 GMT

That is correct. Bare metal is exactly that ;)

Other functionalities must be added separately.

RE: nRF54L05 without Zephyr/VSCode

pungent1188 — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 14:36:56 GMT

That looks nice, but it only seems to contain the base functionalities to get to main( ), none of the BLE or higher functionalities.

RE: nRF54L05 without Zephyr/VSCode

Emil Lenngren — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 14:18:56 GMT

The nRF54Lxx is supported by many environments using NordicSemiconductor's MDK. If you download the "CMake, 5-clause Nordic license" variant from https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/nRF-MDK/Download, you will get all the files needed for a "bare metal" installation. It contains register definition files, startup code, default interrupt handlers and the vector table, linker scripts etc. for various toolchains (IAR, GCC, Keil µVision and Segger Embedded Studio). The CMake sample will build a "hello world" project. For some reason, the MDK at the download page does not contain the files for nRF54 though, but they are available here: https://github.com/NordicSemiconductor/nrfx/tree/master/bsp/stable/mdk. You can just add those files to the unzipped MDK, then create a new e.g. cmake target using the same approach as for the other SoCs.

I myself use this approach with CLion (the GCC variant) and it works perfectly.

RE: nRF54L05 without Zephyr/VSCode

pungent1188 — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 10:25:23 GMT

Thank you I understand, please update the ticket when something changes.

Meanwhile, we are evaluating ST's BLE which still supports standard C.

RE: nRF54L05 without Zephyr/VSCode

Susheel Nuguru — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 17:06:25 GMT

Not sure what was promised to you, my understanding is that nrf-bm is a bridge or a stepping stone SDK to eventually move your products to nRF Connect SDK which is Zephyr based. If you want pure non-RTOS based solution with any KConfigs glues, then nrf-bm is not there yet. We are still depending on the Zephyr build system. If this is not what you want, then please talk to your Regional Sales Manager about any misunderstandings in promises.

RE: nRF54L05 without Zephyr/VSCode

pungent1188 — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 16:30:56 GMT

So, if I work out VSC and command line will I get a self contained project dir at the end?

I can grab the macros from cmake/makefiles, after that, it works with any ARM compiler.

I can live with zephyr headers, but don't want the RTOS part.

Otherwise, you might as well advertise nrf54 as "only supports zephyr OS/compiler, doesn't work with anything else, even though it's written in C, for profit margin reasons", and it shouldn't be called bare metal SDK.

RE: nRF54L05 without Zephyr/VSCode

Susheel Nuguru — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 16:07:20 GMT

Arpad,

We hear you, but please understand that nrf-bm is our attempt to give a solution that should be used to make your migration to nrf connect sdk easier. This baremetal drop is heavier than it should as this are our first drops and we are still working on optimizing them in the next releases. We still reuse nrfx HAL/MDK, logging, a few Zephyr utility headers (for k_busy_wait, logging API), and the west manifest to pull pieces. This is not a pure CMSIS pack yet (and do not know if it ever will be)

You only need VSC to install it in a simpler way, if you prefer not to use it, you can do these through command line as well.

The baremetal pieces are living in modules/hal/nordic/nrfx. All the board files are in nrf/board/nordic.

[quote user="pungent1188"]We are paying +2000usd/year for safety certified IAR compiler, we don't need zephyr with its 70 000 files.[/quote]

There are tens of compilers that needs to be paid for using them in commercial products, but we cannot support all of them. We made a strategic decision to support our newer solutions with Visual Studio Code and with Command line. We understand that even though this feels like a limitation, but we only did this to balance our resources to give proper solutions well tested with VSC and command line.

RE: nRF54L05 without Zephyr/VSCode

pungent1188 — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 11:09:04 GMT

A tutorial from zero to blinking LED would be nice in the documentation.

I downloaded the SDK (not the toolchain), but why is it so huge? I didn't ask for the zephyr one.

If it builds with west and it's full of Kconfig then I don't think it qualifies as bare metal.

Do you have any cmake or at least CMSIS examples? e.g.

C:\ncs\nrf-bm\v0.9.0\nrf-bm\samples\peripherals\leds\src\main.c

starts with

#include <zephyr/kernel.h> /* k_busy_wait() */
#include <zephyr/sys_clock.h> /* USEC_PER_MSEC */
#include <zephyr/logging/log.h>
#include <zephyr/logging/log_ctrl.h>

looks like it's not even possible to build it without zephyr files:

nrfx_config.h contains:

#include "nrfx_kconfig.h"

I see you also dropped every .eww file from the SDK.

How do I get the required project defines for L15/L05 targets, if I manually collect all the files together into a flat folder?

(ideally SDK would collect every required file into /hal /cmsis but we don't live in an ideal world)

We are paying +2000usd/year for safety certified IAR compiler, we don't need zephyr with its 70 000 files.

RE: nRF54L05 without Zephyr/VSCode

khelmutlord — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 19:59:35 GMT

Hello,

Apologies for the gap in documentation. You can install the SDK with nrfutil. https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/nrfutil/page/nrfutil-sdk-manager/guides/sdk_manager_searching.html#searching-for-specific-sdk-types

Search for the latest with "nrfutil sdk-manager search --type nrf-bm"

Install with "nrfutil sdk-manager sdk install v0.9.0 --type nrf-bm"

Then launch the toolchain with: "nrfutil toolchain-manager launch --toolchain-path <your_path> --shell"

You can then build, for instance, the ble_nus sample with "west build -b bm_nrf54l15dk/nrf54l05/cpuapp/s115_softdevice/mcuboot"

Thanks,

Helmut Lord