Skip to content

Installation

Requirements

  • ROS 2 (any distribution)
  • Python 3.8+
  • pyyaml — pip3 install pyyaml
  • bash shell

Install

git clone https://github.com/mlisi1/DendROS
cd DendROS
bash install.sh
source ~/.bashrc

The installer copies files to /usr/local/dendROS/ and adds a source line to ~/.bashrc. From that point on, ros2 launch and ros2 run are automatically piped through the colorizer.

Use the non-interactive -y flag for RUN layers:

COPY . /tmp/dendROS/
RUN bash /tmp/dendROS/install.sh -y

Copy only the essential runtime files:

COPY dendROS/ /usr/local/dendROS/
RUN pip3 install --no-cache-dir pyyaml \
 && chmod +x /usr/local/dendROS/dendROS_pipe.py \
 && printf '\n# dendROS\nsource /usr/local/dendROS/dendROS.sh\n' \
    >> /root/.bashrc

Docker Compose

Add these settings to your service so colors render correctly:

services:
  my_robot:
    tty: true
    stdin_open: true
    environment:
      - RCUTILS_COLORIZED_OUTPUT=1

Exec vs Up

docker compose exec my_robot bash sources ~/.bashrc immediately. docker compose up log streaming has no TTY — tty: true is required for ANSI colors to render there.

Uninstall

bash uninstall.sh

Removes /usr/local/dendROS/ and the .bashrc lines cleanly. Nothing else is touched.

Verify

After sourcing .bashrc, use DENDROS_DEBUG=1 to confirm DendROS found your config:

DENDROS_DEBUG=1 ros2 launch my_pkg my_launch.py
Colored Terminal Output

Terminal Output

If you see passthrough mode instead, the config was not found. Check that:

  • The package was built and install/setup.bash was sourced.
  • config/dendROS.yaml is installed to share/my_bringup/config/ — verify your CMakeLists.txt installs the config/ directory.