Welcome to

Welcome to AtomVM, the Erlang virtual machine for IoT devices!

AtomVM is a lightweight implementation of the the Bogdan Erlang Abstract Machine (_aka_, the BEAM), a virtual machine that can execute byte-code instructions compiled from Erlang or Elixir source code. AtomVM supports a limited but functional subset of the BEAM opcodes, and also includes a small subset of the Erlang/OTP standard libraries, all optimized to run on tiny micro-controllers. With AtomVM, you can write your IoT applications in a functional programming language, using a modern actor-based concurrency model, making them vastly easier to write and understand!

AtomVM includes many advanced features, including process spawning, monitoring, message passing, pre-emptive scheduling, and efficient garbage collection. It can also interface directly with peripherals and protocols supported on micro-controllers, such as GPIO, I2C, SPI, and UART. It also supports WiFi networking on devices that support it, such as the Espressif ESP32. All of this on a device that can cost as little as $2!

Warning

AtomVM is currently in Alpha status. Software may contain bugs and should not be used for mission-critical applications. Application Programming Interfaces may change without warning.

Contents:

• Welcome to AtomVM!
  • What is AtomVM?
  • Why Erlang/Elixir?
  • Design Philosophy
  • Licensing
  • Source Code
  • Contributing
  • Where to go from here
• Release Notes
  • Required Software
• Getting Started Guide
  • Getting Started on the ESP32 platform
  • Getting Started on the STM32 platform
  • Getting Started on the Raspberry Pi Pico platform
  • Getting Started on the Generic UNIX platform
  • Getting Started with AtomVM WebAssembly
  • Where to go from here
• AtomVM Tooling
  • atomvm_rebar3_plugin
  • ExAtomVM
  • atomvm_packbeam
  • Where to go from here
• Programmers Guide
  • AtomVM Features
  • AtomVM Development
  • Applications
  • Core APIs
  • ESP32-specific APIs
  • Peripherals
  • Protocols
  • Socket Programming
• Network Programming Guide
  • Station (STA) mode
  • AP mode
  • STA+AP mode
  • SNTP Support
  • NVS Credentials
  • Stopping the Network
• Build Instructions
  • Downloading AtomVM
  • Source code organization
  • Building for Generic UNIX
  • Building for ESP32
  • Building for STM32
  • Building for Raspberry Pi Pico
  • Building for NodeJS/Web
• AtomVM Internals
  • What is an Abstract Machine?
  • AtomVM Data Structures
  • Runtime Execution Loop
  • Module Loading
  • Function Calls and Return Values
  • Exception Handling
  • The Scheduler
  • Mailboxes and signals
  • Stacktraces
  • AtomVM WebAssembly port
• Memory Management
  • The Context structure
  • Simple Terms
  • Boxed terms
  • Lists
  • Special Stack Types
  • Garbage Collection
• Packbeam Format
  • Overview
  • Packbeam Header
  • File encodings
• API Reference Documentation
  • Erlang Libraries
  • AtomVM ‘C’ Internal Libraries

Indices and tables

• Index

• Module Index

• Search Page