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Welcome to ros_bt_py!

This is a Behavior Tree library meant to be an alternative to BehaviorTree.cpp, SMACH, FlexBE and the like.

It includes a ReactJS-based web GUI and all the building blocks you need to build advanced mission control Behavior Trees without writing a single line of code!

ros_bt_py is a plug-and-play solution for all your ROS 2 deliberation needs including:

• Intuitive interfacing with ROS Actions and Services through run-time configurable Node Classes
• Explicit and type-safe Dataflow utilizing a drag-and-drop based datagraph.
• Easy customization and expansion of the available Node Classes as Python Modules

ros_bt_py has been the subject of multiple publications:

• Distributed Behavior Trees for Heterogeneous Robot Teams
• Behavior Tree Capabilities for Dynamic Multi-Robot Task Allocation with Heterogeneous Robot Teams

Documentation, Improvements and Community

Learn about how to get started, API and tutorials in our documentation.

If you have specific questions or ideas feel free to write an issue or start a discussion.

Installation

To actually start using ros_bt_py, you need to install its dependencies first:

$ cd colcon_workspace
$ rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y

Then you can just build the package with your preferred method i.e. colcon build

ros_bt_py is under active development so things on the main branch might not be stable.

To make sure you do use a stable version check out the latest release.

Running

The command

$ ros2 launch ros_bt_py ros_bt_py.launch.py enable_web_interface:=True

will start a BT server and the rosbridge and webserver needed for the GUI. Afterwards, you can open http://localhost:8085/index.html to use the editor.

Launch Options

Stand-alone Web Interface

The web interface can be launched stand alone of the library, using the following command:

$ ros2 launch ros_bt_py_web_gui ros_bt_py_web_gui.launch.py web_server_port:=8085 web_server_address:=0.0.0.0

Contributing to CONTRIBUTING.md

First off, thanks for taking the time to contribute! ❤️

All types of contributions are encouraged and valued. See the Table of Contents for different ways to help and details about how this project handles them. Please make sure to read the relevant section before making your contribution. It will make it a lot easier for us maintainers and smooth out the experience for all involved.

And if you like the project, but just don’t have time to contribute, that’s fine. There are other easy ways to support the project and show your appreciation, which we would also be very happy about:

• Star the project
• Tweet about it
• Refer this project in your project’s readme
• Mention the project at local meetups and tell your friends/colleagues

Table of Contents

• Contributing to CONTRIBUTING.md
  • Table of Contents
  • I Have a Question
  • I Want To Contribute
    • Legal Notice
    • Reporting Bugs
      • Before Submitting a Bug Report
      • How Do I Submit a Good Bug Report?
    • Suggesting Enhancements
      • Before Submitting an Enhancement
      • How Do I Submit a Good Enhancement Suggestion?
  • Styleguides
  • Attribution

I Have a Question

If you want to ask a question, we assume that you have read the available Documentation.

Before you ask a question, it is best to search for existing Issues that might help you. In case you have found a suitable issue and still need clarification, you can write your question in this issue. It is also advisable to search the internet for answers first.

If you then still feel the need to ask a question and need clarification, we recommend the following:

• Open an Issue.
• Provide as much context as you can about what you’re running into.
• Provide project and platform versions (ROS2, python, OS,…), depending on what seems relevant.

We will then take care of the issue as soon as possible.

I Want To Contribute

Legal Notice

Any contribution that you make to this repository will be under the 3-Clause BSD License, as dictated by that license.

Reporting Bugs

Before Submitting a Bug Report

A good bug report shouldn’t leave others needing to chase you up for more information. Therefore, we ask you to investigate carefully, collect information and describe the issue in detail in your report. Please complete the following steps in advance to help us fix any potential bug as fast as possible.

• Make sure that you are using the latest version.
• Determine if your bug is really a bug and not an error on your side e.g. using incompatible environment components/versions (Make sure that you have read the documentation. If you are looking for support, you might want to check this section).
• To see if other users have experienced (and potentially already solved) the same issue you are having, check if there is not already a bug report existing for your bug or error in the bug tracker.
• Also make sure to search the internet (including Stack Overflow) to see if users outside of the GitHub community have discussed the issue.
• Collect information about the bug:
• Stack trace (Traceback)
• OS, Platform and Version (Windows, Linux, macOS, x86)
• Version of the interpreter, compiler, SDK, runtime environment, package manager, depending on what seems relevant.
• Possibly your input and the output
• Can you reliably reproduce the issue? And can you also reproduce it with older versions?

How Do I Submit a Good Bug Report?

You must never report security related issues, vulnerabilities or bugs including sensitive information to the issue tracker, or elsewhere in public. Instead sensitive bugs must be sent by email to <>.

We use GitHub issues to track bugs and errors. If you run into an issue with the project:

• Open an Issue. (Since we can’t be sure at this point whether it is a bug or not, we ask you not to talk about a bug yet and not to label the issue.)
• Explain the behavior you would expect and the actual behavior.
• Please provide as much context as possible and describe the reproduction steps that someone else can follow to recreate the issue on their own. This usually includes your code. For good bug reports you should isolate the problem and create a reduced test case.
• Provide the information you collected in the previous section.

Once it’s filed:

• The project team will label the issue accordingly.
• A team member will try to reproduce the issue with your provided steps. If there are no reproduction steps or no obvious way to reproduce the issue, the team will ask you for those steps and mark the issue as needs-repro. Bugs with the needs-repro tag will not be addressed until they are reproduced.
• If the team is able to reproduce the issue, it will be marked needs-fix, as well as possibly other tags (such as critical), and the issue will be left to be implemented by someone.

Suggesting Enhancements

This section guides you through submitting an enhancement suggestion for CONTRIBUTING.md, including completely new features and minor improvements to existing functionality. Following these guidelines will help maintainers and the community to understand your suggestion and find related suggestions.

Before Submitting an Enhancement

• Make sure that you are using the latest version.
• Read the documentation carefully and find out if the functionality is already covered, maybe by an individual configuration.
• Perform a search to see if the enhancement has already been suggested. If it has, add a comment to the existing issue instead of opening a new one.
• Find out whether your idea fits with the scope and aims of the project. It’s up to you to make a strong case to convince the project’s developers of the merits of this feature. Keep in mind that we want features that will be useful to the majority of our users and not just a small subset. If you’re just targeting a minority of users, consider writing an add-on/plugin library.

How Do I Submit a Good Enhancement Suggestion?

Enhancement suggestions are tracked as GitHub issues.

• Use a clear and descriptive title for the issue to identify the suggestion.
• Provide a step-by-step description of the suggested enhancement in as many details as possible.
• Describe the current behavior and explain which behavior you expected to see instead and why. At this point you can also tell which alternatives do not work for you.
• You may want to include screenshots and animated GIFs which help you demonstrate the steps or point out the part which the suggestion is related to. You can use this tool to record GIFs on macOS and Windows, and this tool or this tool on Linux.
• Explain why this enhancement would be useful to most CONTRIBUTING.md users. You may also want to point out the other projects that solved it better and which could serve as inspiration.

Styleguides

All code contributed to the project needs to adhere to the styleguids set for ROS2 by using the ament_lint tools. The easiest way of ensuring compliance with the style guides is by using pre-commit on the project root. This will run all needed checks and report violations.

Attribution

This guide is based on the contributing.md. Make your own!