Installation

Pre-alpha

The Maven artifacts are not published yet, so this will not resolve. The steps are correct and will work unchanged once they are.

Java and C++

In VS Code with the WPILib extension, open the command palette and run WPILib: Manage Vendor Libraries → Install new libraries (online), then paste:

https://frcsdk.sapphify.com/SapphifyLib-2027.json

The JSON is copied into your project’s vendordeps/ folder. Commit it — it is part of your robot code, and a teammate cloning the repository needs it.

Online installs expire — use the offline zip before a competition

A vendor dependency installed in online mode caches its artifacts locally, and WPILib clears that cache after about 30 days. A team that installs in October and arrives at a March competition with no venue internet has a robot that will not build.

Offline installation

Download SapphifyLib-offline-2027.0.0-alpha-1.zip and extract it into the root of your WPILib year directory:

Linux and macOS	~/wpilib/2027_alpha5
Windows	C:\Users\Public\wpilib\2027_alpha5

The archive carries maven/ and vendordeps/, which is exactly the layout WPILib looks for. Then add vendordeps/SapphifyLib.json to your robot project, or copy it in directly.

This needs no internet connection and does not expire. Do it before you travel.

Why this URL never changes

frcsdk.sapphify.com serves the vendordep and nothing else. It is separate from maven.sapphify.com, which serves the artifacts, because this URL ends up copied into every team’s project and into the WPILib vendor repository — so it can never move. The artifact store behind it can change providers without breaking a single installed library.

Verifying without a robot

The library’s decoders have no WPILib or hardware dependency, so you can check your setup on a laptop with nothing but a JDK:

git clone https://github.com/SapphifyRobotics/sapphify-lib
cd sapphify-lib/src/main/java
java com/sapphify/frc/hardware/SapphifyLibSelfCheck.java

24 checks covering frame decoding, staleness, fault reporting, configuration validation and misuse detection. If you are writing your own driver from the CAN protocol specification, this is how you check your decoders against ours.