Getting started

1 · Flash the firmware

Before installing the kernel, your microcontroller needs the µcore firmware. Head to the Firmware page, connect your board over USB, and flash it directly from the browser — no toolchain required.

2 · Install the kernel

pip install ukernel

The wheel ships the µcore kernelspec and the device-manager sidebar extension. jupyter lab picks them up automatically — no extra registration step needed.

Custom Python setups (pyenv, conda)

If which python3 doesn't resolve to the interpreter you want the kernel to run under, install the kernelspec explicitly:

python -m ukernel install        # register for this interpreter
python -m ukernel install --user # install to ~/.local/share/jupyter

3 · Launch JupyterLab

jupyter lab

The launcher shows a µcore tile next to Python 3. Open it to start a µcore notebook.

Selecting a microcontroller

The Device Manager panel in the left sidebar lists every detected board. Click one to make it the active microcontroller for the session. If only one board is connected, the kernel picks it automatically.

Supported hardware

µcore runs on the ESP32 chip family. Any chip in the family can be added as long as MicroPython supports it — the µcore firmware is compiled per chip and frozen alongside the standard MicroPython library.

Chip	Example boards
ESP32	Generic ESP32 dev boards (30-pin, 38-pin)
ESP32-S3	ESP32-S3-DevKitC-1, YD-ESP32-S3, WeAct S3, Waveshare S3

Other ESP32 variants (C3, S2, C6, H2) are candidates for future support.