Try Without Microcontroller

BlueScript is designed primarily for microcontroller development (ESP32). If you do not have hardware yet—or want a faster path for language and compiler checks—you can run BlueScript on the host runtime on your development machine.

For the main ESP32 workflow, see Get Started.

Linux not supported

The host runtime supports macOS and Windows. Linux is not supported at this time.

Prerequisites

Quickstart

1. Install the CLI

If you have not installed the CLI yet:

npm install -g @bscript/cli

On Windows, install the Visual C++ Build Environment before running this command.

2. Set up the host runtime

bscript board setup host

3. Create a host project

bscript project create hello-host -b host
cd hello-host

4. Write your program

Edit src/index.bs:

src/index.bs

console.log("Hello from host runtime!");

5. Run

bscript project run

You can also start interactive mode:

bscript project run --with-repl
# or
bscript project run --with-notebook

Notes

• bscript board flash-runtime is for microcontrollers and is not supported for host.
• GPIO and other ESP32-specific libraries are not available on host.

Host vs ESP32

Topic	Host (-b host)	ESP32 (-b esp32)
Main use case	Fast local testing	Real hardware development
Runtime location	Local process on the development machine	Runtime on the microcontroller
Setup	bscript board setup host	bscript board setup esp32 + bscript board flash-runtime esp32
Connection during run	Local process	Bluetooth
deviceName in bsconfig	Not available (field does not exist)	Available — BLE device name to connect to
Hardware libraries (GPIO, PWM, I2C)	Not available	Available via packages
flash-runtime	Not supported	Required for first-time setup

Choose ESP32 if you are building applications for real devices. Choose host if you want a no-hardware path for syntax checks, compiler behavior checks, or CI-like validation.