Can not install toolchain for 3rd party SDK (ie stock zephyr)

RE: Can not install toolchain for 3rd party SDK (ie stock zephyr)

Vidar Berg — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 09:00:39 GMT

Hi Kent,

No problem. Looking back I can see that my answer may have sounded more like a workaround than a proper solution. What’s happening is that before looking for installed Zephyr SDKs in the CMake package registry, the extension checks if build tools such as west are available on PATH. Only if they are found will the installed/registered Zephyr SDK(s) be displayed. (NCS toolchains don’t require this check since they bundle the build tools.) Another solution is update your PATH in ~/.zshrc to include the path to where you your 'west' executable is located. Then you won’t need to launch VS Code from the terminal to inherit a working build environment.

[quote user="kent@khauser.net"]If you can confirm that the stock toolchains must be installed outside of the GUI and can not be selected except via the method you have identified[/quote]

Correct, the GUI only supports installation of NCS toolchains.

Best regards,

Vidar

RE: Can not install toolchain for 3rd party SDK (ie stock zephyr)

kent96822 — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 01:28:50 GMT

Hi Vidar.

Sorry I took so long to get back you. I Didn't realize you were nordic support & just thought it was another user suggesting a work-around.

As you correctly point out, starting vs-code from a terminal the west environment activated allows for selection of the stock toolchains in build. Once the builds complete, the `actions` pane shows the selected toolchain. (And more importantly, the proper toolchain is used -- turns out the three projects I am working on now -- 1 with nordic sdk, one with zephyr-stock 4.3.0 & one with zephyr-stock 3.7.1LTS all require their corresponding toolchains to properly complile code.)

The reason I didn't recognize your solution is that I was looking for something like "in settings set this json value" or some other method directly from the vs-code GUI. If you can confirm that the stock toolchains must be installed outside of the GUI and can not be selected except via the method you have identified, I'll be glad to mark this as the accepted answer.

Thanks again for your help & sorry I was so slow on the uptake.

Kent

RE: Can not install toolchain for 3rd party SDK (ie stock zephyr)

Vidar Berg — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 07:00:55 GMT

Did you try opening VS code from the terminal as I suggested in my previous reply?

RE: Can not install toolchain for 3rd party SDK (ie stock zephyr)

kent96822 — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 22:37:32 GMT

Do I need to add additional information to the ticket? Please let me know if I can help move this along. Thanks.

RE: Can not install toolchain for 3rd party SDK (ie stock zephyr)

Vidar Berg — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 09:21:42 GMT

Hello,

First time I'm trying to use the Zephyr SDK instead of the NCS toolchain on macOS, but it seems to work fine as long as I open VS code from the terminal to let it inherit the build environment. Could you try the same on your end to see if it works for you as well?

Opening VS code from terminal by running "code ." from the workspace directory

(https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/mac#_launch-vs-code-from-the-command-line):

Best regards,

Vidar