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2.1.0 Release Notes

Source

CodeFusion Studio source can be found on GitHub under tag V2.1.0

About this release

CodeFusion Studio 2.1.0 introduces a preview of the AI Debug Assistant, an agentic AI system that actively participates in your debug sessions. The release also comes with updates to existing features, including Package Manager improvements and workspace creation enhancements.

What's new

The following features and enhancements are introduced in version 2.1.0.

AI Debug Assistant

The AI Debug Assistant is a new agentic debugging tool that connects compatible AI clients, such as GitHub Copilot and Claude Code, directly to your live debug sessions. Built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), it enables AI models to autonomously investigate faults, inspect hardware state, and coordinate across multiple cores in real time.

Rather than answering static questions about your code, the assistant can:

  • Autonomously investigate hard faults: Read fault registers, decode exception types, walk the call stack, and identify the root cause
  • Inspect live hardware state including registers, memory, variables, stack traces, and thread lists directly from the target
  • Set and manage breakpoints and hardware watchpoints, including conditional breakpoints
  • Execute GDB commands with built-in safety guards
  • Coordinate multi-core debug sessions to surface shared-memory race conditions and DMA conflicts
  • Follow pre-built diagnostic workflows for crash diagnosis, memory corruption, peripheral misconfiguration, and firmware size analysis

The assistant exposes a comprehensive set of tools and pre-built diagnostic workflows through MCP, making it compatible with any MCP-supported AI client — not just the ones supported today.

For setup instructions and usage examples, see Using the AI Debug Assistant.

Package Manager improvements

This release introduces significant improvements to Package Manager, including improved authentication handling and support for semantic version ranges in package installation commands. These enhancements simplify authentication workflows and make it easier to install and update compatible package versions.

Package Manager authentication

Authentication handling for Package Manager has been clarified and improved.

  • Authentication is now managed using:
    • cfsutil myanalog (login, logout, and status)
    • cfsutil pkg auth-remote for configuring authentication on package remotes.
  • The following commands are now deprecated and display warnings directing users to the new workflow:
    • cfsutil pkg login
    • cfsutil pkg logout
    • cfsutil auth (login, logout, and status)
  • The cfsutil pkg list-remotes command now displays authentication status, including inactive sessions.
  • An issue was fixed where adding a package remote could be accidentally cancelled by clicking outside the prompt in the Command Palette.

Support for Semantic versioning for package install commands

Package installation using the cfsutil pkg install command now supports semantic version range expressions.

CodeFusion Studio packages use semantic versioning in the format MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH (for example, 2.1.0). Version ranges allow compatible minor and patch versions to be installed automatically.

The following version range operators are supported in cfsutil pkg install:

  • Caret (^)
  • Tilde (~)
  • Comparison operators (>=, <=, >, <)

When a version range is specified, cfsutil installs the newest available version that satisfies the constraint.

New installation flag

  • --local: Install packages from the local cache only (offline mode)

For detailed version range syntax and examples, see CFSUtil.

Workspace creation improvements

Plugin options are now filtered by core during manual workspace creation. For example, selecting a RISC-V core shows only supported plugins (such as MSDK), while unsupported options such as Zephyr are hidden.

Cores in the workspace creation wizard are now ordered with the primary core listed first.

Development platforms and tools

  • Support for Zephyr RTOS 4.2 Get started
  • Support for the MSDK Get started with MSDK
  • Support for the ADSP-2183x/SC83x SHARC-FX family:
    • Adds build and debug support for SHARC-FX–based devices on Windows.
    • ADI ICE drivers are required to debug SHARC-FX processors using ADI ICE probes.
      • During installation, select the checkbox ADI ICE Drivers (Requires Administrator) to install these drivers.
      • If you skip this option, you can install the drivers later. For details, see Install ICE drivers manually.
    • Requires installation of the Xtensa SHARC-FX toolchain through the Package Manager.
    • For multicore devices such as the ADSP-SC835W, start debugging on the SHARC-FX core first, then attach to the Arm Cortex-M33 core.
    • For additional information, see Debugging a SHARC-FX application.
    • System Planner currently provides Pin Mux configuration only for SHARC-FX devices in this release.
  • Advanced workflow support for Registers-only (bare-metal): A reference plugin that generates low-level MMR initialization code for use in custom toolchains. The option is available when manually creating a MAX32xxx and MAX78xxx supported workspace.
  • Compiler and debug support available for Zephyr (Arm Cortex-M only) and MSDK (Arm Cortex-M and RISC-V) on MAX32xxx and MAX78xxx microcontrollers, and SHARC-FX (ADSP-2183x/SC83x family).

Software component versions installed with CFS 2.1.0

Component Version Notes
Bare-metal ARM toolchain 14.3.Rel1 GCC toolchain for 32-bit Arm® targets
Bare-metal RISC-V toolchain 14.2.0 GCC toolchain for RISC-V targets
MSDK 2.1.0 Part support and examples for MAX32xxx and MAX78xxx microcontrollers
SHARC-FX SDK 3.0.3 SDK for the Cortex-M33 core on SHARC-FX targets
Zephyr RTOS 4.2.0 Real-time operating system for MAX32xxx and MAX78xxx microcontrollers
Zephyr SDK 0.17.4 GCC-based toolchain for 32-bit Arm® development with Zephyr RTOS

Host architecture support

CodeFusion Studio is supported on the following host operating systems:

  • Windows 11 (64-bit)
  • macOS 15 and macOS 26 (ARM64)
  • Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 (64-bit)

Earlier or newer OS versions may work but are not officially supported.

Target architecture support

Processor support is unchanged in this release. For the full list, see supported processors.

Known issues and limitations

AI Debug Assistant

The AI Debug Assistant is a preview feature. Some commands may not behave as expected, particularly around session management and GDB command passthrough. Improvements are planned for future releases.

The following commands listed in the @cfs-debug help output do not work as expected:

  • clear all breakpoints: Returns help text instead of clearing breakpoints. Use remove breakpoint at <file>:<line> to remove breakpoints individually.
  • x/16xw <address>: Returns help text instead of examining memory. Use read memory at <address> instead.
  • Conditional breakpoints: You may encounter issues with natural language forms such as set a conditional breakpoint where counter > 10. It may be helpful to use the structured form, such as set breakpoint at main.c:42 if counter > 10, instead.

For best results, use a Claude model (such as Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Claude Opus 4.6) with the @cfs-debug chat participant. Other models may work for basic commands but could produce inconsistent results or errors for AI analysis features.

Debug issues

  • The Analyze Threads GDB Toolbox script requires an OpenOCD debug configuration. JLinkGDBServer does not support Zephyr thread awareness, which causes the script to fail when using a J-Link debug configuration. Use CFS: Debug with GDB and OpenOCD (Arm Embedded) instead.
  • Not all debug functionality of the boards is accessible using the Segger J-Link. For a list of supported devices, see the Segger website.
Board J-Link limitation Alternative
MAX32650EVKIT Serial output not available Use MAXPICO debugger if you need serial output
MAX32650FTHR Serial output not available Use MAXPICO debugger if you need serial output
MAX32655FTHR No JTAG connector for direct J-Link connection Use MAXPICO debugger instead
MAX32660EVSYS No JTAG connector for direct J-Link connection Use MAXPICO debugger instead
MAX32666FTHR Serial output not available Use MAXPICO debugger if you need serial output
MAX32670EVKIT J-Link supported, but board does not expose SWD/JTAG pins Use MAXPICO debugger instead
MAX32675CEVKIT Serial output not available Use MAXPICO debugger if you need serial output
MAX32690FTHR Serial output not available Use MAXPICO debugger if you need serial output
APARD32690 Serial output not available Use MAXPICO debugger if you need serial output
MAX78000FTHR Not supported Use MAXPICO debugger instead

See 2.0.1 known issues for other issues.