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RTOS Views

Thread-aware debugging for embedded RTOS firmware is provided by the rtos-views companion extension.

Installation​

Install the rtos-views extension from the VS Code Marketplace:

  1. Open the Extensions panel
  2. Search for rtos-views
  3. Install the extension published by mcu-debug

Or install from the CLI:

code --install-extension mcu-debug.rtos-views

The rtos-views extension is separate from mcu-debug so that RTOS support can be updated independently.

Supported RTOSes​

RTOSSupport Level
FreeRTOSFull (thread list, state, stack usage)
ThreadX / Azure RTOSFull
ZephyrPartial
OthersCommunity contributions welcome

Features​

When a supported RTOS is detected in the firmware:

  • Thread list: all threads with their current state (Running, Ready, Blocked, Suspended)
  • Stack usage: current stack depth and stack watermark (if the RTOS tracks it)
  • Thread-aware backtrace: view the call stack of any thread, not just the currently running one
  • Task names: human-readable task names from the RTOS task control blocks

Using RTOS Views​

RTOS views appear automatically in the Run and Debug sidebar when:

  1. mcu-debug is connected to a target
  2. The target is halted (at a breakpoint or after stepping)
  3. rtos-views recognizes an RTOS in the ELF file's symbol table

No special launch.json configuration is required — rtos-views reads the RTOS data structures from their known addresses in the ELF symbol table.

GitHub​

Source code and issue tracker: github.com/mcu-debug/rtos-views