Setting Up a Programming Environment Apple Silicon Mac (2025) - team1868/1868wiki GitHub Wiki

These are the MacOS instructions. If you get stuck, ping the programming slack channel and include the log.txt file that if there are script failures. IF YOU'RE DOING THIS AT LAB DURING THE FIRST WORKSHOP, WE WILL PROVIDE YOU A USB TO DOWNLOAD THESE FILES. OTHERWISE, PLEASE ATTEMPT TO INSTALL AT HOME AND AT LEAST DOWNLOAD THE FRCLibResourcesAppleSiliconMac2025.zip BEFORE COMING TO LAB. DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE! It may take over an hour.

Before starting:

  • Save and close other application work (installation may require restarting computer)
  • Connect to good wifi (LAB WIFI IS NOT GOOD WIFI)

This instruction set will install the 2025 resources for:

  • VSCode with WPILib
  • Phoenix 5 and 6 Libraries from CTRE
  • PhotonVision resources

Additionally, the following command line and version control utilities will also be installed:

  • git
  • clang-format
  • pre-commit
  • unzip

Initial instructions (Bare minimum before lab)

VSCode & WPILIB

Installs WPILib 2025.3.2 with VSCode 1.103.

  1. In ~/Downloads/FRCLibResourcesAppleSiliconMac2025, open WPILib_macOS-Arm64-2025.3.2 to mount the installer
  2. Open the WPILibInstaller
  3. Inside the installer
  • Select Start
  • Select Install for this User
  • Select Select existing VS Code zip for offline install on this computer and in the pop up file selection window choose VSCode-darwin.zip found in the ~/Downloads/FRCLibResourcesAppleSiliconMac2025 directory.
  1. Click Finish and move the shortcut to the dock.

Install Xcode

  1. Navigate to Xcode Developer Tools in the app store
  2. Follow the App Store instructions to install Xcode Developer Tools

3rd party WPILib libraries

  1. Open a terminal
  2. Navigate to the unzipped and downloaded resources
cd ~/Downloads/FRCLibResourcesAppleSiliconMac2025
  1. Run the install script
./frc_install.sh

Install VSCode plugins

  1. Open VSCode
  2. Select Extensions from the left navigation bar
  3. Search for ms-vsliveshare.vsliveshare
  4. Install the Live Share extension
  5. Search for xaver.clang-format
  6. Install the Clang-Format extension
  7. Search for streetsidesoftware.code-spell-checker
  8. Install the Code Spell Checker extension