autoware-dev

name

autoware-dev

description

Assists with Autoware autonomous driving development, debugging, and navigation. Use this skill whenever the user works with Autoware, ROS 2 autonomous driving, perception/planning/control/localization modules, colcon builds, ament_cmake, autoware_cmake, launch files, component interfaces, agnocast, NDT scan matcher, EKF localizer, behavior velocity planner, trajectory planning, point cloud processing, TensorRT inference, lanelet2 maps, autoware_core, autoware_universe, or autoware_msgs. Even if the user doesn't say "Autoware" explicitly, trigger when the context involves ROS 2 autonomous driving packages with the autoware_ prefix.

Autoware Development & Debugging

Quick Start

Goal	Go to
Create a new package	Creating a Package then references/development-guide.md for full templates
Debug a build or runtime issue	Debugging Quick Reference then references/debugging-guide.md for details
Understand the system architecture	Architecture then references/architecture.md for deep dive
Implement or modify a node	references/development-guide.md
Write tests	references/development-guide.md § Testing

Architecture

Autoware is a three-tier autonomous driving stack on ROS 2:

• autoware (meta-repo) — workspace definition, version pinning via .repos files
• autoware_core — stable, production-quality packages
• autoware_universe — experimental, community-contributed packages
• agnocast (optional) — zero-copy IPC middleware with kernel-level shared memory

Data flows through a pipeline: Sensing → Perception → Planning → Control, with Localization and Map feeding into the pipeline at multiple points.

Key message types between stages:

From → To	Message	Topic
Perception → Planning	PredictedObjects	/perception/object_recognition/objects
Planning → Control	Trajectory	/planning/trajectory
Control → Vehicle	Control	/control/command/control_cmd
Localization → All	Odometry	/localization/kinematic_state
Map → Planning	LaneletMapBin	/map/vector_map

All inter-module interfaces are defined in autoware_component_interface_specs with standardized topic names, message types, and QoS. VOLATILE for real-time streams, TRANSIENT_LOCAL for persistent data. See references/architecture.md for the full interface table, module breakdown, Agnocast details, and dependency graph.

Creating a Package

Every Autoware package follows this structure. For copy-paste templates, see references/development-guide.md.

Checklist:

1. CMakeLists.txt — find_package(autoware_cmake REQUIRED) then autoware_package() which sets C++17, -Werror, and auto-finds deps from package.xml
2. package.xml — Format 3, always include ament_cmake_auto and autoware_cmake as buildtool deps
3. Node class — Inherit rclcpp::Node, use InterProcessPollingSubscriber for decoupled input polling, timer-driven processing
4. Component registration — RCLCPP_COMPONENTS_REGISTER_NODE() at end of .cpp, plus rclcpp_components_register_node() in CMake
5. Launch file (XML) — Load param YAML with <param from="..."/>, remap ~/input/* and ~/output/* topics
6. Config YAML — Under /**: → ros__parameters:
7. Tests — ament_auto_add_gtest in CMake, use autoware_test_utils helpers

Naming: packages autoware_*, topics ~/input/* and ~/output/*, classes PascalCaseNode, namespaces autoware::package_name

Debugging Quick Reference

Symptom	Likely Cause	First Step
CMake "package NOT found"	Missing dep or stale build	rosdep install --from-paths src
"CUDA::cudart not found"	CUDA/TensorRT path issue	Check nvcc --version, CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH
Topic not receiving data	QoS mismatch	ros2 topic info /topic -v
"parameter must be initialized"	Missing param in config	Check launch file loads YAML
"failed to create domain"	DDS participant limit	Set MaxAutoParticipantIndex=1000 in cyclonedds.xml
Node crashes on empty input	Missing null guard	Add if (msg->data.empty()) return;
NDT huge latency	Pipeline bottleneck	Check per-stage timestamps
TensorRT engine fails	GPU arch mismatch	Rebuild engine on target hardware

Key diagnostic commands:

ros2 topic list / info -v / hz / echo    # Topic debugging
ros2 node info /node_name                 # Node connections
ros2 param list /node_name                # Parameters
ros2 run tf2_tools view_frames            # TF tree
colcon build --packages-select <pkg>      # Rebuild one package
rosdep check --from-paths src             # Dependency check

For detailed diagnosis by category (build, runtime, perception, planning, localization, system), see references/debugging-guide.md.

Conventions

• C++17 enforced by autoware_cmake, compiler flags: -Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic -Werror
• Formatting: clang-format, clang-tidy, autoware_lint_common
• License: Apache 2.0
• Commits: feat:, fix:, refactor:, docs:, test: prefixes
• Build: colcon build --symlink-install, test with colcon test --packages-select <pkg>