embassy-supervisor 0.4.2

A generic, HAL-agnostic task-lifecycle supervisor for the embassy async embedded framework: dependency-ordered bring-up/teardown, lifecycle modes, elastic task pools, and runtime start/stop/pause/resume control.
Documentation

embassy-supervisor

crates.io docs.rs

A generic, HAL-agnostic task-lifecycle supervisor for the embassy async embedded framework. no_std, no allocator, no board crates — it compiles for any embassy target. The only third-party deps are pure-embassy crates (embassy-executor/-sync/-time/ -futures) and portable-atomic.

Table of contents

What it is

  • Dependency-ordered lifecycle — the supervisor brings tasks up in dependency order and tears dependents down before the things they depend on.
  • Lifecycle modesTerminate (started at boot, restartable), Pause (park/resume while keeping a held resource), OnDemand (started on demand to scale a pool).
  • Elastic pools (feature pool)ElasticPool scales a set of single-instance worker nodes with load via a swappable ScalingPolicy (e.g. DeferredShrink), within a fixed budget.
  • Runtime control (feature control) — drive start/stop/pause/resume from anywhere (an HTTP endpoint, a button, …) through a decoupled, lossless mailbox (request_control awaits capacity; the sync try_request_control reports a full queue instead of dropping) and a dependency- and pool-aware apply_control.
  • Whole-graph lifecycle opsteardown() / teardown_continue() (reverse-dependency shutdown with acked handshakes), respawn_terminate() (dependency-ordered re-spawn after a wake), resume_pausable() (thaw parked nodes); a missed shutdown ack comes back as a ShutdownTimeout error naming the node, never a hang or a library panic.
  • Multi-executor placementexecutor: annotations route nodes onto interrupt-priority tiers; the graph is the single source of where each task runs.
  • Multi-core placement. The same mechanism spans the second core: start() rendezvouses with the other core's asynchronous executor bring-up as part of the bring-up loop, and a whole elastic pool can live on core 1, scaled by core 0's supervisor.
  • Safe resource threadingresources: annotations move owned peripherals from main into workers through ResourceSlots (compile-time exclusive ownership — no steal()), restored on task exit so a respawn re-takes the same instance.
  • Observability (feature family trace) — per-node CPU time, poll counts and stall detection by consuming embassy-executor's trace hooks, with node names attached.

The supervisor deliberately does not allocate, own a HAL, manage power states, or know what your tasks do — it orchestrates their lifecycle and leaves the rest to you. It also does not catch panics: a panicking task is not captured or restarted (panic capture is off the table in a forbid(unsafe_code) no_std library — it would need unwinding or the app-global panic handler). Pair the supervisor with a hardware watchdog for crashes, and the liveness heartbeat for alive-but-wedged tasks.

The grammar, at a glance

The whole DSL is three item kinds — node, pool, executor — each one line, comma- separated clauses, ;-terminated. A useful graph is often just nodes, deps and task:

supervisor_graph! {
    node NET  = Terminate, deps: [], task: net_task;
    node HTTP = Terminate, deps: [NET], task: http_worker;
}

Everything else is an optional clause on those same lines:

supervisor_graph! {
    name: IDENT;                        // optional first item: rename the GRAPH static
    executor NAME;                      // a runtime-filled spawner slot (other core / IRQ tier)

    node NAME = Mode,                   // Mode: Terminate | Pause | OnDemand
        deps: [A, POOL, NET ready]      // bring-up order; `ready` also waits for set_ready()
        , task: worker                  //   or `spawn: task_fn`; omit both = app-spawned
        , resources: [R: Type, ..]      //   owned values threaded from main (kinds: local/shared/consume)
        , exit: Type                    //   capture the worker's return value
        , state: Type = expr            //   per-activation boxed state, freed on exit
        , cancel                        //   shell owns the shutdown race; worker takes no node
        , pool_size: N , executor: NAME , slot_timeout: MS , disabled;

    pool NAME = [Mode, ..],             // one Mode per member, floor first
        deps: [..], task: worker,
        resources: [..],                //   take kinds become per-member slot arrays
        policy: DeferredShrink::new(..),// scaling policy (required)
        min: EXPR, max: EXPR            //   trailing, in order: [, slot_timeout: MS][, cancel]
        , cancel;                       //   same flag, applied to every member
}

Reading rules, all regular: node clauses after deps: may appear in any order (only pool fields are positional); the mode sits after =; every clause is inline on its item (there are no block forms and no top-level resources { } section); a pool always names its policy:; take-kind resource names are globally unique (each is one static — only shared names repeat, by design); and detached is not a mode but a runtime call (TaskNode::set_detached). Anything structurally wrong — a dependency cycle, an unknown name, a duplicate — is a compile error with a message, never a runtime surprise.

Quickstart

use embassy_executor::Spawner;
use embassy_supervisor::{RunError, Supervisor, supervisor_graph};

// Declare the graph once: `supervisor_graph!` generates the node `static`s and a
// single `GRAPH` bundling the node slots, dep table, compile-time order, and pools.
// Each `task:` names a plain async worker fn (the macro stamps its
// `#[embassy_executor::task]` shell); `app` depends on `net`.
supervisor_graph! {
    node NET = Terminate, deps: [], task: net_task;
    node APP = Terminate, deps: [NET], task: app_task;
}

// Plain async fns taking the node first — no embassy attribute needed.
async fn net_task(node: &'static embassy_supervisor::TaskNode) { /* ... */ }
async fn app_task(node: &'static embassy_supervisor::TaskNode) { /* ... */ }

#[embassy_executor::task]
async fn supervisor_task(spawner: Spawner) {
    // Infallible: the order is precomputed, so a dependency cycle is a compile error.
    let sup = Supervisor::new(&GRAPH);
    // Bring-up in dependency order, then drive pools + runtime control forever;
    // returns only on error, which the app escalates (typically a panic into a
    // hardware-watchdog reset).
    match sup.run(spawner).await {
        RunError::Spawn(_) => panic!("bring-up failed"),
        RunError::Shutdown(e) => panic!("{} missed its shutdown ack", e.node.name),
    }
}

run() = start() + the driver loop; call the pieces yourself (start, then a select(run_pools, wait_control) loop) when the driver must watch extra wake sources. Bring-up is async because an executor: node first awaits its slot; a plain single-executor graph resolves immediately — the .await costs nothing.

The model

Three pieces, all static:

  • TaskNode — one per managed task: a name, a Mode, an optional spawn fn, and a private handle of atomic flags + signals. The task side of the protocol is a handful of node methods — see Writing supervised tasks.
  • Graph<N> — the macro-emitted GRAPH: nodes (fixed [Option<&TaskNode>; N] — a #[cfg]-ed-out node keeps its slot as None), deps (per-node dependency indices), order (the compile-time topological order), and pools (with the pool feature). The fields are public: a status endpoint can iterate them directly.
  • Supervisor<N> — construction-free orchestration over &GRAPH (new is const, so static SUP: Supervisor<5> = Supervisor::new(&GRAPH); works; N = total graph slots, pool members included — the same N as Graph<N>), in three tiers: whole-graph, single-node, and cascading subsystem verbs.

The full verb surface, with signatures (every error type is Debug.unwrap() / .expect() work — and defmt::Format under the defmt feature):

verb signature
start async fn(&self, Spawner) -> Result<(), SpawnError> — quiescent → running, any state
run async fn(&self, Spawner) -> RunErrorstart + drive pools/control; returns only on error
teardown / teardown_continue async fn(&self) -> Result<(), ShutdownTimeout>
respawn_terminate async fn(&self, Spawner) -> Result<(), SpawnError> — wake pair, with...
resume_pausable fn(&self) — ...this (sync: parked tasks pick up immediately)
start_node async fn(&self, &'static TaskNode, Spawner) -> Result<(), SpawnError>
stop_node async fn(&self, &'static TaskNode) -> Result<(), ShutdownTimeout> — awaits the ack
resume_node fn(&self, &'static TaskNode) — sync, Pause nodes only
activate async fn(&self, &'static TaskNode, Spawner) — cascade; spawn errors deliberately swallowed
deactivate async fn(&self, &'static TaskNode) -> Result<(), ShutdownTimeout> — cascade
apply_control async fn(&self, ControlCommand, Spawner) -> Result<(), ShutdownTimeout>
run_pools async fn(&self, Spawner) -> ShutdownTimeout — completes only on error

Error provenance: RunError, ShutdownTimeout, Aborted, ControlQueueFull are crate types; SpawnError is re-used from embassy_executor. All the guarantees here are cross-thread (release/acquire atomics) — a host test's main thread reads them as safely as another task.

The control mailbox (feature control) is two free functions and two small types: async fn request_control(&'static TaskNode, ControlOp) (lossless — awaits mailbox capacity), fn try_request_control(..) -> Result<(), ControlQueueFull> (sync contexts), and enum ControlOp { Activate, Deactivate } — just those two variants; higher-level verbs (start/stop/pause/resume) fold onto them per the node's Mode. All of these are importable from the crate root (embassy_supervisor::try_request_control, embassy_supervisor::ControlOp, …); ShutdownTimeout's one field is pub node: &'static TaskNode (hence e.node.name in escalation messages).

One cascade asymmetry worth knowing: activate expands dependencies (up) and deactivate expands dependents (down) — so a pool taken down as a dependent of a deactivated node is not re-enabled by re-activating that node. Re-enable it by targeting the pool itself: Activate on any member expands to the whole pool (membership is part of the seed), respawning the floor and re-enabling the OnDemand members for policy-driven growth.

Mode decides what each transition does to a node:

mode at boot on teardown on bring-up
Terminate spawned exits its loop (acks) respawned (respawn_terminate)
Pause spawned (or app-spawned if parked) acks, then parks on wait_resume() resumed in place (resume_pausable) — keeps held resources
OnDemand not started stopped like Terminate not auto-started — pools/control start it

How a task implements its half of these transitions is the TaskNode API.

Lifecycle reference

The canonical per-operation matrix — what each supervisor operation does to a node, by mode and by the two lifecycle-spanning flags (disabled, detached). Other docs link here.

Missed acks are errors, not panics. Every stop path awaits the target's ack with a 2 s timeout; a node that misses it is returned as ShutdownTimeout naming the node — from stop_node, teardown, and (feature control) apply_control; run_pools completes (only) with it when a shrink hits a wedged member. teardown aborts at the first timeout so a still-live dependent never has its dependencies stopped under it; after Err the graph is partially down and the application escalates (hardware watchdog reset, panic!, or retry). teardown_continue is the best-effort variant for the "hardware reset next" path: it visits every remaining node past the wedge and reports the first timeout at the end.

operation Terminate Pause OnDemand disabled detached
start (boot + re-entry, async) spawned in dep order; already-running skipped (idempotent) spawned (cold); an instance parked by an earlier teardown is resumed in place; a parked (no-spawn:) node is only marked running skipped skipped first start spawns it (tasks detach themselves after that); re-entry skips it — its instance survived the teardown
teardown shutdown + ack, exits shutdown + ack, parks on wait_resume() stopped if running, else skipped already down — nothing to do skipped (self-managed)
deactivate (control) disabled + stopped; cascades to transitive dependents, dependents first disabled + stopped, parks; stays parked disabled + stopped — the whole pool, atomically re-disabled (idempotent) skipped — never pulled into the cascade, even when targeted directly
activate (control) enabled + started, after its transitive deps enabled + resumed in place enabled only — the pool policy regrows it under load this is the flag it clears skipped — not re-enabled, not restarted; its deps: are start-ordering only and are not expanded
stop_node shutdown + ack shutdown + ack, parks (this is the single-node pause) shutdown + ack (the pool-shrink path) not running → no-op no-op
resume_node no-op (wrong mode) reset + resumed in place, keeps held resources no-op (wrong mode) skipped — a manual pause sticks no-op
respawn_terminate (async) reset + respawned in dep order untouched (use resume_pausable) left down — the policy regrows it skipped — a manual stop sticks skipped — it never went down, respawning would double-spawn
resume_pausable untouched reset + resumed in place, keeps held resources untouched skipped — a manual pause sticks left parked

Two flags cut across the modes:

  • disabled is the "a human said stop" latch: deactivate sets it, activate clears it, and every bring-up path honors it so a manual stop/pause survives a wake respawn or an elastic regrow.
  • detached (TaskNode::set_detached(true)) is full hands-off: the node manages its own lifecycle and the supervisor never drives it again. Its deps: still order its first spawn — after that, the graph only remembers where it was declared.

Defaults in one place: shutdown-ack timeout 2 s (a missed ack returns ShutdownTimeout); pre-spawn slot/gate/ready-dep wait 100 ms per gate (override per node with slot_timeout:; timeout = SpawnError::Busy); control mailbox depth 4 (request_control awaits capacity, try_request_control reports ControlQueueFull); trace registries track up to 4 executors and 4 graphs.

Writing supervised tasks (the TaskNode API)

A worker typed -> ! (or a service contract returning a Never type) opts out of Terminate/restart by type — the body can never return, so stop and respawn semantics are inert on it as-is. Two ways in: add cancel to the node and the generated shell races the body against shutdown for you (no signature change, the future is dropped in place), or keep the node argument and race the work yourself (one run_cancellable call) when teardown needs ordered post-cancel work. Pause-parked and detached daemons are the forms that legitimately never return.

A supervised task is an async fn whose first parameter is its node — the macro's glue passes it automatically; extra arguments come from the partial-call form (task: my_task(EXTRA)). (A cancel node is the exception: its worker never sees the node — the shell holds it and uses this same API on the worker's behalf.) The preferred style is a plain worker fn declared with task: — the graph stamps the #[embassy_executor::task] shell for you:

async fn my_task(node: &'static TaskNode) { /* ... */ }

Alternatively, write the attribute yourself and declare the fn with spawn: — needed in a few situations (which to use). Everything below (the four rules, the method table) applies identically to both styles; only who writes the #[embassy_executor::task] differs.

The node is the task's half of the lifecycle protocol. Four rules cover all of it:

  1. Select your work against wait_shutdown() at every await point that can block indefinitely — that's how a teardown/stop reaches you.
  2. Ack exactly once per stop with ack_dropped(): on exit (Terminate/OnDemand), or on each pause (Pause) before parking. A task that never acks surfaces as a ShutdownTimeout error naming the node — a loud bug report, not a hang, and the application chooses the escalation.
  3. An autonomous exit calls mark_exited() — it acks like ack_dropped() and records the completion, so a worker that returns on its own reads as down (has_exited(), not running-forever) and a control Activate can respawn it. task: shells do this automatically after the worker returns; only hand-written spawn: tasks call it themselves.
  4. Resources follow the mode: a Terminate task re-acquires everything on respawn (drop-on-exit is the cleanup); a Pause task keeps what it holds across pause→resume and never re-acquires.

Task-side methods:

method role
run_cancellable_acked(fut).await the everyday body: race fut against shutdown AND complete the handshake on Err(Aborted) — discarding the result (let _ =) is fine, the ack already happened
run_cancellable(fut).await same race, no ack — run cleanup between the cancellation and your own ack_dropped()
wait_shutdown().await the underlying primitive: park until a stop/pause is requested (immediate if already requested)
ack_dropped() complete the handshake: clears running, wakes the supervisor's ack wait
mark_exited() ack_dropped() + record the completion (has_exited()) — call on an autonomous exit; task: shells emit it automatically
wait_resume().await Pause only: park (after acking) until resumed
mark_busy() / mark_idle() pool workers: report load; a real transition fires the scale signal itself — no manual request_scale() needed
shutdown_requested() synchronous check, e.g. at the loop top before starting new work
has_exited() true once the last instance's body returned; cleared by the pre-spawn reset
set_detached(true) opt out of supervision from now on (self-managed daemon or run-once — see the lifecycle reference)
adopt(&token) parked nodes: register a hand-spawned task's id so trace accounting sees it

The combinators return Result<F::Output, Aborted>; Aborted is a crate type — use embassy_supervisor::{Aborted, TaskNode}; covers the canonical loops.

Status methods — readable from anywhere (a status endpoint iterates GRAPH.nodes and reads these; all are cheap atomic loads):

method true when
is_running() the supervisor has an instance up (spawned, not acked, not exited) — "did it come up / go down" checks read this
is_busy() the instance reported mark_busy() (pool load)
is_disabled() stopped-at-boot or control-Deactivated, and not yet re-activated
is_detached() self-managed; every lifecycle op skips it
has_exited() the last instance's body returned (recorded by the task: shell / mark_exited); cleared by the pre-spawn reset
shutdown_requested() a stop/pause was requested — set at the request, readable until the next pre-spawn reset (so a parked Pause node still reads true)
is_ready() (feature readiness) the task asserted set_ready() (cleared by clear_ready() and the pre-spawn reset)
is_stale(max_age) (feature liveness) running but no beat() within max_age

Useful compositions: down = !is_running(); parked Pause = mode Pause + !is_running() + shutdown_requested(); autonomous completion = has_exited() && !shutdown_requested(). A spawn that fail-closed (SpawnError::Busy from a gate) leaves the node !is_running() — nothing was taken or spawned. Ordering guarantees: when stop_node/teardown/deactivate return Ok, the ack has happened and is_running() is already false; for bodies that ack by returning (the run_cancellable_acked idiom), has_exited() is also already true — the ack and the return land in the same poll.

Terminate / OnDemand worker — the canonical cancellable loop:

#[embassy_executor::task]
async fn worker_task(node: &'static TaskNode) {
    let mut conn = acquire();                    // re-acquired on every respawn
    loop {
        match node.run_cancellable_acked(conn.serve()).await {
            Ok(res) => handle(res),
            Err(Aborted) => return,              // acked; drop(conn) is the cleanup
        }
    }
}

The combinators own the select rule 1 asks for. Use bare run_cancellable when cleanup must run between the cancellation and the ack (flush, unpublish, busy/idle bracketing); keep a hand-written select3 when the loop races more than work vs shutdown — nesting combinators there buys nothing.

Pause node — ack, then park; held resources survive:

#[embassy_executor::task]
async fn sensor_task(node: &'static TaskNode) {
    let mut bus = acquire_once();                // kept across pause/resume
    loop {
        while let Ok(v) = node.run_cancellable(sample(&mut bus)).await {
            publish(v);
        }
        node.ack_dropped();                      // ack the pause...
        node.wait_resume().await;                // ...then park, still owning `bus`
    }
}

Pool worker — same as Terminate, plus load reporting around the busy section:

node.mark_busy();                                // idle→busy fires the scale signal
serve_connection(&mut socket).await;
node.mark_idle();                                // busy→idle fires it again

Keep mark_busy() held for the whole session the worker's resource is tied up (e.g. a keep-alive connection): the policy only shrinks non-busy workers. The connection-bound worker that must stay busy across a possible cancellation composes the pieces like this — busy for the whole serve, ack only after the bracketing:

loop {
    match node.run_cancellable(socket.accept(PORT)).await {
        Err(Aborted) => return node.ack_dropped(), // idle here: nothing to bracket
        Ok(conn) => {
            node.mark_busy();
            let served = node.run_cancellable(serve(conn)).await; // busy across the race
            node.mark_idle();
            if served.is_err() {
                return node.ack_dropped(); // cancelled mid-serve: bracket, THEN ack
            }
        }
    }
}

Detached daemon / run-once — detach as the first act, then own your lifecycle:

#[embassy_executor::task]
async fn confirm_task(node: &'static TaskNode) {
    node.set_detached(true);                     // supervisor is hands-off from here
    wait_until_ready().await;
    confirm();                                   // runs once and simply returns
}

Parked node (declared with no spawn:) — the app spawns it by hand, typically because it needs values only main owns; adopt keeps trace attribution working:

let token = pump_task(&PUMP, hw_handle).unwrap(); // task fns return Result<SpawnToken, _>
PUMP.adopt(&token);                               // register its task id for trace
spawner.spawn(token);                             // Spawner::spawn takes the token

The supervisor_graph! DSL

executor NAME;                        // runtime-filled SendSpawner slot (tier / second core)
node NAME = Mode, deps: [A, B][, executor: EXEC], spawn: <spawn>[, disabled];
node NAME = Mode, deps: [A, B][, executor: EXEC], task: <worker>[, pool_size: N]
    [, resources: [[#[cfg(..)]] RES: [local] [shared|consume] Type, ..]]
    [, slot_timeout: MS][, cancel][, disabled];
node NAME = Mode, deps: [A];          // neither => parked node the app spawns itself
pool NAME = [Mode, ..], deps: [A][, executor: EXEC],
    spawn: <fn> | task: <worker>,
    [resources: [RES: [local] [shared|consume] Type, ..],]
                                        // take kinds → per-member slot arrays;
                                        // shared (incl. shared local) one pool-wide slot
    policy: [<Type> =] <expr>,
    min: N, max: M[, slot_timeout: MS][, cancel];

Spawn forms

A bare path f spawns f(&NAME); a partial call f(a, b) spawns f(&NAME, a, b) (the node is always injected first — except under cancel, which suppresses it); a closure is emitted verbatim (nodes only). These forms apply to both spawn: (a hand-written #[embassy_executor::task] fn) and task: (a plain worker fn the macro wraps) — prefer task:; see spawn: vs task: for the cases where spawn: is the right tool. Omit both for a parked node whose task the application spawns itself (e.g. a Pause sensor holding a peripheral handle) — the supervisor tracks it but never spawns it.

task: — generated shells for plain (or generic) workers

spawn: names a hand-written #[embassy_executor::task] fn. task: instead names a plain async fn — possibly generic — and the macro stamps the concrete #[embassy_executor::task] shell for you. This is the escape hatch for embassy's "task functions must not be generic" rule (one static TaskPool per concrete future type): write the worker once, declare one node per concrete instantiation, and each declaration gets its own monomorphized shell.

async fn sensor<D: Sensor>(node: &'static TaskNode, dev: D) { /* ... */ }

supervisor_graph! {
    node BME = Terminate, deps: [BUS], task: sensor::<Bme280>(bme_dev());
    node SHT = Terminate, deps: [BUS], task: sensor(sht_dev());   // turbofish optional
}

Semantics:

  • Same path / partial-call forms as spawn: (no closures — the shell needs a name to call).
  • Worker args are evaluated inside the shell, at the task's first poll, on the node's own executor — so the DSL never needs the arg types, an executor:/second-core node builds its resources on the core that runs them, and cross-node data should go through awaited accessors (a spawn batch polls last-first). Corollary: an extra that can be missing at first poll is a task-side panic, not a failed spawn — extras are for infallible accessors. A value that might not exist yet belongs in resources: (a shared entry for a fan-out handle): the pre-spawn gate turns "missing" into a clean SpawnError::Busy.
  • pool_size: N (default 1) sizes the shell's TaskPool — headroom for a respawn issued while the previous instance is still draining.
  • On a pool, task: emits ONE shell sized to the member count.
  • Trace adoption and executor: routing compose exactly as with spawn:.
  • The ceiling embassy imposes still stands: concrete types are fixed per binary — task: removes the boilerplate, not the monomorphization.

spawn: vs task: — which to use

Prefer task:. It drops the #[embassy_executor::task] boilerplate, admits generic workers, sizes a pool's TaskPool from the member count automatically (no pool_size = MAX constant to keep in sync with the DSL's max:), and is the only form that supports resources:. The generated shell is free at runtime: its wrapper inlines into the same poll, and its TaskPool static simply replaces the one the attribute would have emitted.

spawn: remains the right tool in four situations:

  1. The task fn already carries #[embassy_executor::task] and you can't (or shouldn't) strip it — it lives in another crate, or other code depends on it staying a task fn. task: needs a plain async fn to wrap; a token-returning task fn can't be re-wrapped.

    // other_crate exports: #[embassy_executor::task] pub async fn modem_task(..) { .. }
    node MODEM = Terminate, deps: [], spawn: other_crate::modem_task(&NODES[0]);
    
  2. The same task is also spawned outside the graph. spawn: reuses the one existing TaskPool; task: would stamp a second shell + pool — duplicate RAM for the same future type.

    #[embassy_executor::task(pool_size = 2)]
    async fn logger(node: &'static TaskNode, sink: Sink) { /* ... */ }
    
    // One instance supervised ...
    node LOG = Pause, deps: [], spawn: logger(uart_sink());
    // ... and one spawned by hand elsewhere, sharing logger's pool:
    spawner.spawn(logger(&NODES[log_idx], usb_sink()).unwrap());
    
  3. Custom spawn-time logic — the verbatim closure form (nodes only). task: rejects closures (the shell needs a name to call).

    node SENSOR = Terminate, deps: [BUS],
        spawn: |s: Spawner| {
            let token = sensor_task(&SENSOR, if fast_variant() { Odr::Hz30 } else { Odr::Hz8 })?;
            SENSOR.adopt(&token);   // closures bypass the macro's trace glue — adopt by hand
            s.spawn(token)
        };
    

    ⚠️ The adopt line is your job, and nothing will remind you: the closure owns the SpawnToken, so the macro cannot capture the task id (trace) or stamp the node name (metadata-names) for you, and a stable proc-macro cannot emit a warning. Forgetting it is silent — the node simply never appears in the trace/name output.

  4. Arguments that must be evaluated at spawn time, on the supervisor's executor. spawn: partial-call args run in the spawn glue, at the moment of the (re)spawn; task: extras run inside the shell at its first poll, on the node's own executor. The task: behavior is what you usually want (an executor:/second-core node builds its state on the core that runs it) — reach for spawn: when an argument snapshots something that must be read now or must not run on the target tier.

    // Snapshot the respawn count at the moment of this spawn, not at first poll
    // (an interrupt-tier node's first poll can preempt and land arbitrarily later):
    node REPORT = Terminate, deps: [], executor: HIGH, spawn: report_task(boot_epoch());
    

Omitting both keeps the node parked (see Spawn forms) — that's a third option, not a tie-breaker between the two.

resources: — safe resource threading

ResourceSlot<T>'s full hand-usable API, for reference (the macro's glue uses the same calls): provide(T) / restore(T) fill the slot (restore is provide, named for the give-it-back half), take() -> Option<T> empties it, get() -> Option<T> (T: Copy only) copies without emptying, and async wait_take() -> T awaits a fill then takes — how an exit: slot is read. provide on an already-filled slot overwrites (the old value is dropped): every slot is a mailbox, not a log.

By default a supervised task that needs a peripheral re-acquires it inside its body (Peripherals::steal()), giving up embassy's compile-time ownership guarantee. resources: [NAME: Type, ..] (requires task:; node-only) restores it: each entry emits a pub static NAME: ResourceSlot<Type> at the declaration site, and main moves the resource in:

async fn blink(node: &'static TaskNode, led: &mut Output<'static>) { /* ... */ }

supervisor_graph! {
    node BLINK = Terminate, deps: [], task: blink,
        resources: [LED: Output<'static>];
}

// main, after the Peripherals split:
LED.provide(Output::new(p.PIN_25, Level::Low)); // consumes p.PIN_25 — no steal, no 2nd owner
sup.start(spawner).await?;

The protocol, per (re)spawn:

  1. main provide()s the value once. Consuming the Peripherals field is the compile-time exclusive-ownership guarantee — a second owner cannot exist.
  2. The generated glue take()s it just before the spawn. An unprovided slot fails Supervisor::start with SpawnError::Busy after a bounded wait (the supervisor logs the node name) — fail-closed at bring-up, not a panic inside a running task. Provisioning is the runtime-checked half of the contract.
  3. The generated shell hands the worker &mut Type — after the node arg, in declared order, before any partial-call extras — and restore()s the value after the worker returns (i.e. after its shutdown ack). A Terminate respawn therefore re-takes the same instance; a Pause worker never returns, so it simply retains its resources.

The supervisor awaits a node's slots being filled before each (re)spawn (same bounded wait as executor slots), so late provisioning and the respawn-vs-restore window on another core are both covered. Caveats: a panic in the worker skips the restore (embedded panic = reboot); pool_size > 1 on a resources: node buys nothing (the slot holds ONE value — a second concurrent spawn fails at take()); pools reject resources: (members would contend for a single instance).

Resource kinds: local, consume, and shared

Per-entry markers (order-free; local composes with either of the mutually exclusive consume/shared) refine the default lend-and-restore protocol for the resources it cannot express:

kind worker receives on worker exit use for
(default) &mut Type restore()d — respawn re-takes the same instance long-lived singletons (Output, a reborrowable Peri)
consume Type by value (glue take()s) nothing — the slot stays empty resources the worker must drop at teardown (a driver whose Drop releases pins/DMA) or that go stale across a power cycle and are rebuilt each run
shared Type by value (glue copies via get(), T: Copy) nothing — the slot stays filled one handle fanned out to many consumers (embassy_net::Stack, a &'static shared-bus ref); several nodes — and whole task: pools — declare the SAME slot name
local as the kind it composes with as the kind it composes with !Send values (RefCell-/NoopRawMutex-based driver handles) on a single core

consume makes teardown-drop explicit and turns the wake path into "build fresh, provide(), respawn": until the application re-provides, a respawn fail-closes with SpawnError::Busy instead of reusing a stale instance.

shared replaces the panicking-accessor pattern for fan-out handles: instead of a task: extra like stack() that panics at first poll when the value is missing, a shared resource is gate-awaited before the spawn and a missing value is a clean SpawnError::Busy. The slot static is emitted once per unique name (with the union of the declaring sites' #[cfg] predicates); every re-declaration must repeat the same kind markers and type. Entries may also carry per-entry #[cfg(...)] — gate the worker fn's matching parameter with the same attribute.

local requires the non-default local-resources feature: it swaps the emitted ResourceSlot for a graph-site slot type without the T: Send bound, and that type carries an unsafe impl Sync — the one graph form that injects unsafe code, hence the explicit opt-in (same reason the trace-hooks symbols live at the graph site). Its soundness contract is: all provide/take/restore of a given slot happen on ONE core. Without the feature a local marker is a compile error naming it; the macro also rejects local + executor: (a SendSpawner-routed node needs a Send future), and a consumer crate that forbids unsafe_code cannot use local.

// The cyw43 pattern: a !Send radio runner, dropped at teardown to release its
// pins, rebuilt by the app before each wake respawn.
async fn radio(node: &'static TaskNode, runner: Cyw43Runner) {
    let _ = node.run_cancellable_acked(runner.run()).await; // drop releases PWR/PIO/DMA
}

supervisor_graph! {
    node RADIO = Terminate, deps: [], task: radio,
        resources: [RUNNER: local consume Cyw43Runner];
}

// bring-up (and again on every wake cycle, BEFORE the respawn):
RUNNER.provide(build_radio_runner().await);

exit: — typed exit values

exit: Type on a task: node emits pub static <NODE>_EXIT: ResourceSlot<Type>; the generated shell provide()s the worker's return value into it just before recording the exit, so has_exited() implies the value is present. Read it with <NODE>_EXIT.wait_take().await (or non-blocking take() after has_exited()). The slot is a mailbox, not a log: the next completion overwrites an unread value.

The idiom for completed-vs-cancelled is a worker whose body is the combinator:

async fn serve_worker(node: &'static TaskNode) -> Result<Outcome, Aborted> {
    node.run_cancellable_acked(serve()).await   // exit: Result<Outcome, Aborted>
}

task:-only (the shell is what captures the return; a spawn: fn can provide() into an app-declared slot itself) and not available on pool (K members share one shell; per-member exit values would need per-member storage).

A worker that can never return rejects exit: at compile time. A -> ! worker has no output, so the slot could never be filled and a wait_take() on it would hang forever; the shell's provide() denies unreachable_code on itself to catch that. rustc reports it as unreachable statement (or unreachable call under cancel) pointing at the exit: clause — drop the clause, or give the worker a return type it can actually reach. A diverging worker without exit: stays perfectly legal: that is the shape cancel, Pause, and detached daemons exist for.

cancel — supervisor-unaware workers

Every worker so far takes the node as its first argument and answers the shutdown handshake itself (run_cancellable*, or just returning). cancel moves that whole job into the generated shell: the shell drives the worker under [run_cancellable] and does not pass it the node, so the worker is a plain async fn — the shape an existing firmware already has:

// No node, no handshake, no supervisor in sight. Loops forever.
async fn telemetry(uart: &mut Uart<'static, Async>) -> ! {
    loop { /* ... */ }
}

supervisor_graph! {
    node TELEM = Terminate, deps: [NET], task: telemetry, cancel,
        resources: [UART: Uart<'static, Async>];
}

On stop_node/teardown the shell drops the worker's future in place and runs its usual tail: state freed, resources restore()d, exit recorded — so a Terminate respawn re-takes the same instances, exactly as if the worker had been node-aware. Resources still arrive, now as the first arguments (nothing leads them).

With exit:, the value is provided only on a real completion; an aborted worker leaves <NODE>_EXIT empty (with shutdown_requested() set), which is how a waiter tells "finished" from "stopped". Combining exit: with a worker that can never complete is a compile error. Drop-in-place is also the trade: the worker gets no post-cancel code, so a task that must flush or release something ordered at teardown should keep the node argument and race run_cancellable_acked itself.

A pool takes the same flag, as its last clause (the pool grammar is positional: after max:, and after slot_timeout: if present). It applies to the one shell all members share, so it applies to every member:

async fn handler(conn: &mut Conn) -> ! { loop { /* serve */ } }

supervisor_graph! {
    pool WORKERS = [Terminate, OnDemand, OnDemand], deps: [NET], task: handler,
        resources: [CONN: Conn],
        policy: DeferredShrink::new(Duration::from_secs(5)),
        min: 1, max: 3, cancel;
}

An elastic shrink is a stop like any other, so this is what lets the policy retire a worker that would never have acked one: the member's future is dropped in place and the shell restores its per-member resource to its own slot index, ready for the regrow. The load signal is the one thing that has to move outside the worker — a cancel member holds no node, so mark_busy()/mark_idle() are called on WORKERS[i] by whatever hands it work (the member statics are app-visible), not by the worker itself.

task:-only (a spawn: fn owns its body and can call run_cancellable itself), and rejected on Mode::Pause because a Pause worker must survive the stop and park on wait_resume(), which an exit record nothing ever resumes contradicts.

disabled

Declared but not started at boot; a control Activate starts it later (e.g. an OTA task).

executor NAME; and executor: NAME

executor NAME; emits a SpawnerSlot static; the app fills it with a SendSpawner (InterruptExecutor::start(), Spawner::make_send()), and annotated nodes spawn through it. start() awaits the slot (bounded) as part of bring-up; a slot still empty at the deadline fails the spawn with SpawnError::Busy — loud, not silent. Constraints: executor: requires a spawn: fn (it cannot combine with a verbatim closure), and the routed task's future must be Send.

Dependencies

deps: names declared nodes or pools. A pool name resolves to the pool's floor member (member 0, the min-kept one), so deps: [POOL] means "start after the pool is up".

A plain dep orders spawns, not readiness. start() spawns a node and immediately marks it running, so a dependent with no gates can race its provider's body. Bring-up walks the topological order sequentially: a node's gate wait (slot, resource, ready dep) blocks every node after it in the order until it resolves or times out. Two rendezvous exist, both opt-in:

  • a resources: slot wait — the provider-node pattern (provide() after DHCP etc.);
  • a ready dep marker (feature readiness): deps: [NET ready] additionally awaits the dep's task-asserted set_ready() before spawning this node, bounded by this node's slot_timeout (then SpawnError::Busy, with a log line naming the not-ready dep). Elastic-pool growth also defers while a ready-marked dep is un-ready (a sync check per evaluation — no wait). ready on a pool name means the floor member's readiness; markers on a pool's own deps: apply to every member.

The provider side is three calls: set_ready() once serving, clear_ready() on a lost link (status, not control — dependents are not stopped; pair with a control Deactivate for a cascade), and the pre-spawn reset clears it so a respawned provider re-asserts. wait_ready() exists for app code too, with the same single-pre-fill-waiter caveat as the other latching gates — fan N waiters out through an app-owned embassy_sync::watch::Watch instead.

#[cfg(...)]

Allowed on any node/pool and on individual deps. Absent nodes keep their slot as None and are skipped everywhere at runtime.

pool

The mode list declares the members (floor first: typically [Terminate, OnDemand, ...]). The macro generates the member array NAME: [TaskNode; K], per-member spawn glue, a NAME_POOL: ElasticPool<P>, and the structural constants NAME_MIN / NAME_MAX / NAME_MEMBERS (usize).

Per-member resources. Take-kind resources: entries (the default lend, and consume) become per-member slot arrayspub static RES: [ResourceSlot<T>; K], member I takes and restores element I exclusively, so members never contend, the floor comes up with only floor-many elements provided, and a lend value survives a shrink/regrow on the same index (the per-connection-worker shape). shared entries — shared local included — stay one fan-out slot for the whole pool; only take-kind local is rejected on pools (the single-core slot contract + per-member restore is deferred). A worker derives its own index from its node via NAME_POOL.member_index(node) -> Option<usize> (None = not a member of this pool) to reach per-member app state without per-member spawn arguments.

min:/max: accept const expressions (min: FLOOR, max: FLOOR + 1): integer literals are validated at expansion time with exact spans; anything else makes the emitted NAME_MIN/NAME_MAX consts the source of truth, guarded by const _: () = assert!(..) (min ≤ max ≤ members ≤ 255). The member count K (the mode list) stays a literal by necessity: it determines how many nodes, shells, name strings, and graph slots are emitted, and a proc macro cannot evaluate a downstream const — deriving the member count from a const is structurally out of reach. Pool fields are positional and fixed: deps → executor? → spawn → policy → min → max. policy: takes the scaling policy; annotate the type explicitly (policy: DeferredShrink = make_policy()) when the value isn't a Type::new(..) constructor.

The constants exist for downstream const-context sizing — deriving a related capacity from the DSL instead of duplicating the number by hand (a const cannot read the member static array, so NAME.len() doesn't work there):

// One TCP socket per concurrently-running worker, plus one for DNS:
pub const SOCKET_BUDGET: usize = HTTP_MAX + 1;
let resources = StackResources::<SOCKET_BUDGET>::new();

Limits and compile-time validation

At most 256 slots per graph — all graph indices are u8, which keeps the dep table and order arrays byte-sized on flash-constrained targets.

The macro rejects an invalid graph at compile time, each with a spanned error at the offending token:

  • unknown dependency — a deps: name that is not a declared node or pool
  • duplicate dependencydeps: [A, A] (compared by resolved slot, so a repeated pool name counts too)
  • duplicate node/pool name — a redeclared name would silently rewire earlier deps
  • unknown executor: name — on a node or pool, checked against declared executor NAME; slots
  • executor: with a closure spawn — the closure owns the spawn, so routing through a slot must happen inside it; only the task-fn-path forms combine with executor:
  • malformed spawn form — anything other than a task-fn path, a partial call, or a closure
  • task: and spawn: together — mutually exclusive per node/pool
  • a closure in task: — the generated shell needs a worker fn it can name
  • pool_size: without task: (or pool_size: 0) — it sizes the generated shell's TaskPool; a hand-written task fn declares its own
  • resources: without task: — resources are taken/restored by the generated shell; a hand-written spawn: fn manages its own arguments
  • empty resources: list / duplicate resource name — slot names are statics, unique across the whole graph (only shared entries may repeat a name, verbatim)
  • pool resources: without task: — the generated shell receives the values (and restores lend entries); a spawn: task fn manages its own arguments
  • take-kind local on a pool — the single-core slot contract + per-member restore is deferred; shared local is fine (one pool-wide fan-out slot)
  • a repeated kind marker on a resources: entry (consume consume T) — declaration bug
  • local without the local-resources feature — the kind emits an unsafe impl Sync, so it is strictly opt-in
  • shared with consume — contradictory: one exclusive owner vs any number of copies
  • a shared slot re-declared with different kinds/type — every declaration of the same name is ONE static and must repeat its shape verbatim
  • local resources with executor: — on a node or a pool: a local slot carries !Send values; a SpawnerSlot-routed spawn needs a Send future
  • slot_timeout: 0 — would fail every gated spawn instantly
  • cancel without task: — on a node or a pool: the flag rewrites how the generated shell calls the worker; a hand-written spawn: fn can call node.run_cancellable(..) itself
  • cancel with Pause — the node mode or any pool member: a Pause worker must survive the stop and park on wait_resume(), but cancel drops its future and records an exit; use Terminate/OnDemand, or drive the pause by hand
  • exit: on a worker that can never return — the shell's provide would be dead code, so nothing could ever fill the slot and every waiter would hang; rustc reports it as unreachable statement (or unreachable call under cancel) spanned on the exit: clause rather than as a macro error. A diverging worker without exit: stays legal
  • pool boundsmin <= max <= K (member count), values must fit u8
  • pool without the pool feature — a pool item requires enabling it
  • more than 256 slots — the u8 index cap above
  • dependency cycle — caught by the const topological sort, so it surfaces at const-eval of GRAPH rather than at macro expansion; still a compile error

Generated surface at the call site: one pub static per node, the pool array + NAME_POOL + the NAME_MIN/NAME_MAX/NAME_MEMBERS consts, one SpawnerSlot static per executor NAME;, one slot static per resources: entry (plus, iff any entry is local, the local slot type), and pub static GRAPH — nothing else.

Recipes by use case

Heap and the graph

The reclaimability boundary, stated plainly: task storage stays static — by soundness, not preference. Every Waker embassy hands out is an unrefcounted raw pointer into the task's storage; stale wakes against reused storage are safe no-ops, against freed storage they are use-after-free, and nothing counts outstanding waker clones — so no safe free point exists. What IS reclaimable is future-owned state: everything the body owns drops when it returns (embassy never force-cancels — after the shutdown select, the future runs to completion). The supervisor therefore uses heap only where it comes back:

  • state: Type = init_expr (feature heap-state) — per-activation boxed state. The spawn glue fallibly boxes the init value (alloc failure = SpawnError::Busy, nothing spawned or stranded, retry when heap frees up), the shell lends the worker &mut Type (after resources, before extras — e.g. a node with resources: [STACK: shared u32], state: Buf = Buf::new() has a worker async fn w(node: &'static TaskNode, stack: u32, buf: &mut Buf)), and the Box drops on task exit — before restores and the completion record, so has_exited() implies the heap is back. Every activation allocates fresh; N respawns = net zero. On a pool, each member boxes its own. The container (the future's static storage) is now a thin shell; the bulk is paid only while the phase runs. The ~6-line fallible-boxing helper is the feature's entire unsafe surface and is emitted into YOUR crate (the local-resources precedent); you need a #[global_allocator].
  • consume Box<T> slots — the app-provided variant, zero crate support needed: provide a fresh Box before each activation, the worker owns it, drop-on-exit frees it, the slot stays empty until re-provided (fail-closed respawn). Use it when the app decides the allocation (budget checks before an Activate — pair with a free-bytes gate); use state: when the graph should just do it.
  • Lend a Box (RES: Box<Big> with the default kind) to keep ONE allocation alive across respawns instead — pay-once, reclaim-never, but no per-cycle churn.

Box<T> in any of these still requires T: 'static — placement recipes, not lifetime escape hatches.

Subordinate sub-graph under an app state machine

The graph does not have to own your main. A state-machine (or super-loop) firmware keeps owning sequencing — and carries data between states, which a declarative graph cannot — while a dedicated named sub-graph is cycled with whole-graph ops per state entry/exit, dependency-ordered both ways automatically:

supervisor_graph! {
    name: UPLOAD_GRAPH;
    node WIFI   = Terminate, deps: [],     task: wifi_ctrl,
        resources: [WIFI_HW: consume WifiController<'static>];
    node NET    = Terminate, deps: [WIFI], task: net_runner;
    node UPLOAD = Terminate, deps: [NET],  task: upload_worker;
}

let sub = Supervisor::new(&UPLOAD_GRAPH);
loop {
    state = match state {
        State::Menu => menu(&mut ctx).await,
        State::Upload => {
            WIFI_HW.provide(build_wifi(&mut ctx));   // rebuilt per entry
            sub.start(spawner).await?;               // WIFI -> NET -> UPLOAD, in order
            let next = upload_screen(&mut ctx).await; // state machine stays in charge
            sub.teardown().await?;                   // UPLOAD -> NET -> WIFI, reverse
            next
        }
        // ...
    };
}

start() is the universal quiescent-to-running op, so mixed-mode sub-graphs cycle correctly: each node is reset per cycle (re-entry starts clean), running and detached nodes are skipped (idempotent; a detached instance survived the teardown), and a Pause instance parked by the previous teardown() is resumed in place rather than double-spawned (spawned once, resumed every re-entry). teardown() awaits every ack, so re-entering the state cannot race the previous instances — for the canonical ack-by-returning bodies the previous task has fully exited (and freed its TaskPool slot) before teardown() returns, so the default pool_size of 1 suffices for cycling; consume slots make "rebuild the radio each entry" fail-closed instead of stale-reuse.

One-graph variant (feature control): declare the subtree Terminate + disabled in the main graph and drive it as a dependency cascade — Activate on the leaf pulls its transitive deps up in topo order (skipping already-running ones), Deactivate on the root tears its transitive dependents down in reverse. Prefer this over a separate graph when the subtree depends on always-on nodes (graphs are closed worlds — there are no cross-graph dep edges), when the subtree should ride the system-wide sleep/wake lifecycle (one teardown() covers it, and the disabled latch keeps it down across the wake's respawn_terminate()), or when the phase must be drivable from anywhere via request_control through the shared mailbox (e.g. the supervisor lives inside a run() driver task):

State::Upload => {
    WIFI_HW.provide(build_wifi(&mut ctx));
    sup.activate(&UPLOAD, spawner).await;            // WIFI -> NET -> UPLOAD
    let next = upload_screen(&mut ctx).await;
    sup.deactivate(&WIFI).await?;                    // UPLOAD -> NET -> WIFI
    next
}

(activate/deactivate are the cascading, disabled-latching verbs — contrast the single-node, no-cascade start_node/stop_node. apply_control is the same pair routed through the request_control mailbox, for code that doesn't hold the supervisor.)

Either way the supervisor is a library here, not the owner of bring-up.

Node and pool names below are invented; swap in your own worker fns. They use task: throughout (the preferred form — plain async fns, no #[embassy_executor::task]); substitute spawn: in the same position for any of the four cases in spawn: vs task:. Nodes shown without either are parked on purpose: the application spawns them itself, so those workers do keep the attribute.

Simple dependency chain

supervisor_graph! {
    node SENSOR   = Terminate, deps: [], task: sensor_worker;
    node REPORTER = Terminate, deps: [SENSOR], task: reporter_worker;
}

REPORTER is brought up only after SENSOR. The topological order is computed at compile time — a cycle or an unknown dep name is a compile error.

Generic worker over N driver types (task:)

// ONE generic worker — a plain async fn, not a #[embassy_executor::task]:
async fn poll_sensor<D: Sensor>(node: &'static TaskNode, dev: D) {
    while let Ok(v) = node.run_cancellable_acked(dev.sample()).await {
        publish(v);
    }
}

supervisor_graph! {
    node BUS = Terminate, deps: [], task: bus_worker;
    // One node per concrete driver; the macro stamps a monomorphized shell each:
    node BME = Terminate, deps: [BUS], task: poll_sensor::<Bme280>(bme());
    node SHT = Terminate, deps: [BUS], task: poll_sensor(sht());  // inferred
}

Args (bme(), sht()) are evaluated inside each shell at first poll, on the node's own executor.

Provider node — async multi-output construction in the graph

One async bring-up often builds SEVERAL correlated driver objects (a cyw43 radio: two runners + a Control + a Stack handle) that different nodes consume, and must re-run every wake cycle. That builder becomes an ordinary provider node — no special DSL, just the gate machinery pointed at runtime provisioning:

// The provider: builds and provide()s, holds NOTHING afterwards. Terminate
// mode makes respawn_terminate re-run the build each wake cycle.
async fn radio_hw(node: &'static TaskNode) {
    let (runner, control, stack) = build_radio().await;  // hundreds of ms
    RUNNER.provide(runner);     // consume slot: empty again after teardown
    CONTROL.provide(control);   // consume slot
    STACK.provide(stack);       // shared slot: fanned out, stays filled
    node.wait_shutdown().await;
    node.ack_dropped();
}

supervisor_graph! {
    node RADIO_HW = Terminate, deps: [], task: radio_hw;
    // Consumers: deps order them after the provider, and slot_timeout covers
    // its build time (the 100 ms default assumes provided-before-start).
    node LINK = Terminate, deps: [RADIO_HW], task: link_worker, slot_timeout: 5000,
        resources: [RUNNER: local consume Runner];
    node CTRL = Terminate, deps: [RADIO_HW, LINK], task: ctrl_worker, slot_timeout: 5000,
        resources: [CONTROL: local consume Control, STACK: shared local Stack];
}

The lifecycle falls out of the existing rules: start() spawns RADIO_HW first (topo order) and parks on the consumers' gates until it has provided; teardown drops consumers first (reverse topo — consume values are dropped, shared handles just die with their copies) and the provider last; respawn_terminate re-runs the provider FIRST, so the consumers' gate waits rendezvous with the freshly built values. A provider that dies before providing surfaces as SpawnError::Busy on its consumers after their slot_timeout — fail-closed, never a stale reuse.

Readiness rendezvous (ready dep marker)

A plain dep orders spawns; the ready marker (feature readiness) additionally holds the dependent until the dep's task says it is actually serving:

supervisor_graph! {
    node NET  = Terminate, deps: [], task: net_worker;
    node HTTP = Terminate, deps: [NET ready], task: http_worker,
        slot_timeout: 10000;   // how long HTTP's spawn waits for NET's set_ready()
}

async fn net_worker(node: &'static TaskNode) {
    bring_link_up().await;                       // DHCP, registration, calibration…
    node.set_ready();                            // NOW dependents may spawn
    let _ = node.run_cancellable_acked(serve()).await;
    // (a link-loss handler would clear_ready() — status, not control: already-
    // running dependents keep running; future spawns and pool growth wait)
}

set_ready() latches until clear_ready() or the pre-spawn reset (a respawned provider re-asserts for its new instance). The wait is bounded by the DEPENDENT's slot_timeout: and fails the spawn with SpawnError::Busy, so a provider that never becomes ready is a loud, retryable error — never a hang.

Elastic worker pool with DeferredShrink

supervisor_graph! {
    node BROKER = Terminate, deps: [], task: broker_worker;
    pool WORKERS = [Terminate, OnDemand, OnDemand, OnDemand], deps: [BROKER],
        task: worker,
        policy: embassy_supervisor::DeferredShrink::new(embassy_time::Duration::from_secs(4)),
        min: 1, max: 4;
}

Four member slots; min: 1 is the always-on floor, growth up to max: 4 under load. DeferredShrink waits 4 s of idle surplus before shrinking so brief lulls don't thrash. Requires the pool feature. task: on a pool emits ONE shell sized to the member count, so there is no pool_size = 4 constant to keep in sync with max:.

Pause node holding a resource (parked, app-spawned)

supervisor_graph! {
    node SENSOR = Pause, deps: [];   // neither `task:` nor `spawn:` => parked node
    node READER = Terminate, deps: [SENSOR], task: reader_worker;
}

// main() spawns the sensor task itself, with the peripheral handle it owns:
spawner.spawn(sensor_task(&SENSOR, i2c).unwrap());

A Pause node acks a shutdown, then parks on wait_resume() — the I2C handle it holds is never dropped. resume_pausable() thaws it in place after a wake.

Control-started node (disabled)

supervisor_graph! {
    node NET     = Terminate, deps: [], task: net_worker;
    node UPDATER = Terminate, deps: [NET], task: updater_worker, disabled;
}

start() skips UPDATER at boot; it comes up only when runtime control targets it with request_control(&UPDATER, ControlOp::Activate). Use for on-demand subsystems (a firmware updater, a debug server) that shouldn't run until explicitly asked for.

Detached self-managed daemon

supervisor_graph! {
    node LOG_DRAIN = Terminate, deps: [], task: log_drain_worker;
}

// Plain async fn — `task:` stamps the #[embassy_executor::task] shell:
async fn log_drain_worker(node: &'static embassy_supervisor::TaskNode) {
    node.set_detached(true); // full hands-off from here on
    loop { /* drain forever, self-managed */ }
}

After set_detached(true) the supervisor never drives the node again — teardown, control cascades, stop_node, respawn and pause-resume all skip it. The graph stays the single place it's declared and ordered; management stops after the first spawn.

Interrupt-priority executor tier

supervisor_graph! {
    executor HIGH;   // runtime-filled SendSpawner slot (an interrupt-priority tier)
    node SAMPLER = Terminate, deps: [], executor: HIGH, task: sampler_worker;
    node LOGGER  = Terminate, deps: [SAMPLER], task: logger_worker;
}

// app side, before `sup.start(...)` (embassy-rp shown; any HAL works):
static EXECUTOR_HIGH: InterruptExecutor = InterruptExecutor::new();
interrupt::SWI_IRQ_0.set_priority(Priority::P2);
HIGH.set(EXECUTOR_HIGH.start(interrupt::SWI_IRQ_0));

SAMPLER runs at raised priority while LOGGER stays on the thread executor — yet the dependency between them is still honored. sampler_worker's future must be Send; if the slot is never filled, start() fails with SpawnError::Busy after a bounded wait. A task: extra is evaluated inside the shell, i.e. on the raised-priority tier at its first poll — switch that node to spawn: when an argument must instead be snapshotted on the supervisor's executor at the moment of the spawn (case 4 of spawn: vs task:).

Second-core pool

supervisor_graph! {
    executor CORE1;
    pool CRUNCHERS = [OnDemand, OnDemand], deps: [], executor: CORE1,
        task: cruncher_worker,
        policy: embassy_supervisor::DeferredShrink::new(embassy_time::Duration::from_secs(2)),
        min: 0, max: 2;
}

The pool members run on core 1's executor while core 0's supervisor scales them. Core 1's entry publishes its spawner (CORE1.set(sp.make_send()) inside executor.run); start() and start_node await the slot, so a late-booting core is a rendezvous, not a race. min: 0 lets the pool scale fully down when idle.

Node depending on a pool

supervisor_graph! {
    pool WORKERS = [Terminate, OnDemand], deps: [],
        task: worker,
        policy: embassy_supervisor::DeferredShrink::new(embassy_time::Duration::from_secs(3)),
        min: 1, max: 2;
    node DISPATCHER = Terminate, deps: [WORKERS], task: dispatcher_worker;
}

A dep on a pool name resolves to the pool's floor member, so deps: [WORKERS] means "start DISPATCHER once the pool floor is up".

Run-once check, ordered last

supervisor_graph! {
    node NET = Terminate, deps: [], task: net_worker;
    pool WORKERS = [Terminate, OnDemand], deps: [NET],
        task: worker,
        policy: embassy_supervisor::DeferredShrink::new(embassy_time::Duration::from_secs(3)),
        min: 1, max: 2;
    node READY_PROBE = Terminate, deps: [WORKERS], task: ready_probe_worker;
}

async fn ready_probe_worker(node: &'static embassy_supervisor::TaskNode) {
    node.set_detached(true);
    // everything above is up now; do a one-shot post-boot self-check, then return
}

deps: [WORKERS] on a leaf node makes it the last thing brought up. Its exit is observed (the task: shell records it via mark_exited(), so teardown skips it either way); detaching is still what makes it run once ever — without it, respawn_terminate on the next wake cycle would re-run the completed node.

Composite: sensor tier + parked diagnostics + power coordinator

supervisor_graph! {
    executor HIGH;                    // interrupt-priority tier

    node SENSOR   = Terminate, deps: [], executor: HIGH, task: sensor_worker;
    node NET      = Terminate, deps: [], task: net_worker;
    node UPLOADER = Terminate, deps: [NET, SENSOR], task: uploader_worker;
    node STATS    = Pause, deps: [], task: stats_worker;   // parked through sleep
    node POWER    = Terminate, deps: [];  // parked: main spawns it with the Spawner
}

static SUP: Supervisor<5> = Supervisor::new(&GRAPH);

// A parked node (neither `task:` nor `spawn:`): main spawns it by hand because it
// needs a value only main has — here the `Spawner` that `respawn_terminate` takes:
//     spawner.spawn(power_task(&POWER, spawner).unwrap());
#[embassy_executor::task]
async fn power_task(node: &'static embassy_supervisor::TaskNode, spawner: Spawner) {
    node.set_detached(true); // survives the teardown it is about to drive
    loop {
        wait_for_idle().await;
        SUP.teardown().await;                       // quiesce the graph; POWER is skipped
        enter_low_power().await;                    // Pause nodes stay parked
        SUP.resume_pausable();                      // thaw the parked diagnostics
        SUP.respawn_terminate(spawner).await.ok();  // respawn the stateless services
    }
}

The common shapes combined: a latency-critical node on an interrupt tier, a Pause diagnostics node that keeps its state across the sleep, and a detached coordinator that drives the whole sleep/wake cycle itself — because it's detached, its own teardown() and respawn_terminate() calls skip it.

Elastic pools

ElasticPool scales single-instance members between min and max running instances. Workers report load (mark_busy/mark_idle + request_scale); the supervisor's run_pools(spawner) future — selected against wait_control() in the driver loop — wakes on each scale request (it never polls), asks each pool's ScalingPolicy for a PoolAction, and starts/stops one member accordingly. A member is never grown while one of its declared dependencies is down (or, with readiness, while a ready-marked dep is un-ready).

The whole driver is one call when you don't need extra select arms: sup.run(spawner).await = start() + drive pools and control forever, returning a RunError only on error (bring-up spawn failure, or a missed shutdown ack) — every arm an app-level escalation, typically panic! into a hardware-watchdog reset. Apps that select their own wake sources into the loop keep writing select(sup.run_pools(spawner), wait_control()) + apply_control by hand.

The built-in DeferredShrink policy grows immediately when saturated (no idle member, below max) and shrinks only after an idle surplus has persisted for a configurable cooldown — responsive up, lazy down. One idle spare is the stable dead-band, so a single spare never flaps. Swap in your own policy by implementing ScalingPolicy (a sync, allocation-free decision fn).

Multi-executor tiers and multi-core

The executor mechanism is one story at two scales: an InterruptExecutor tier on the same core, or a second core running its own executor. Either way, tasks never migrate and the graph is the single source of placement.

supervisor_graph! {
    executor CORE1;
    node BENCH = Terminate, deps: [], executor: CORE1, task: bench_worker, disabled;
}

// core 1 publishes its spawner as it boots (embassy-rp shown; any HAL works):
spawn_core1(p.CORE1, &mut CORE1_STACK, || {
    EXECUTOR1.run(|sp| CORE1.set(sp.make_send()))
});

// bring-up rendezvouses with that asynchronous publish as part of `start` itself
// (bounded wait per `executor:` node, then `SpawnError::Busy`):
sup.start(spawner).await?;

Everything the supervisor does is already cross-core sound (atomics + critical-section primitives): teardown awaits acks from the other core, apply_control starts/stops remote nodes, and a whole pool can carry executor: CORE1 — an elastic worker pool on core 1, scaled by core 0's supervisor. With trace, the other core's executor shows up as its own line in the stats; register trace::set_core_id_fn (one line, e.g. read SIO.CPUID on RP2350) to keep trace-nested exact per core. Explicit non-goals: task migration and work stealing (futures aren't Send across most HALs — each node lives where the graph puts it).

Composing graphs across crates

supervisor_graph! is one closed invocation — but it does not have to be one closed file. A module (or a whole crate) declares its slice of the graph as a fragment, and one compose site assembles them:

// net.rs (or a separate crate)
embassy_supervisor::supervisor_fragment! {
    name: NET_FRAG;
    node NET = Terminate, deps: [], task: $crate::net::net_task,
        resources: [USB_DEV: Peri<'static, USB>];
}

// main.rs — the one compose site per binary
embassy_supervisor::compose_graph! {
    fragments: [NET_FRAG, ::http_stack::HTTP_FRAG],
    graph: {
        node APP = Terminate, deps: [NET], task: app_worker;  // cross-fragment dep
    }
}

A fragment emits a #[macro_export] relay macro that forwards its items — verbatim, with their spans — into the compose site's single supervisor_graph! expansion. So every compile-time pass still sees the whole graph: cross-fragment deps resolve by name in either direction (forward references included), duplicate names and shared-slot shape mismatches error with the owning fragment named, the topological order and the 256-node cap span everything. All statics (nodes, slots, GRAPH) land at the compose site.

Rules and caveats:

  • Paths: a fragment references its own workers/types via $crate::… (resolves to the fragment's crate at any compose site) or fully-qualified ::crate_name::…. A bare crate::… resolves at the compose crate — a bug unless they are the same crate. No $ other than $crate is permitted (validated).
  • #[cfg(...)] inside a fragment is evaluated against the COMPOSE crate's features (the tokens expand there). A fragment crate that wants feature-dependent shapes exports differently-named fragment variants instead.
  • One compose site per binary (it emits the graph statics and, under trace-hooks, the hook symbols); fragment names are crate-root macros — prefix them.
  • Fragment item syntax is validated at the fragment site with its own spans; only name resolution waits for the compose site.

Multiple graphs per binary

name: IDENT; as a graph's first item (also compose_graph! { name: X, … }) renames the emitted static and suffixes every generated helper, so several supervisors coexist — e.g. an always-on primary graph plus a [subordinate sub-graph] (#subordinate-sub-graph-under-an-app-state-machine) the app cycles. Rules:

  • The unnamed graph is the primary: under trace-hooks only it emits the once-per-binary _embassy_trace_* symbols; named graphs are secondary (their nodes still resolve in the trace recorders — each start() registers its graph, up to trace::MAX_GRAPHS).
  • The control mailbox and scale signal are shared. Run ONE driver (one run() or one run_pools/wait_control loop) and apply each command to every supervisor in turn — a command naming a node outside a supervisor's graph is a safe no-op. Two independent driver loops would race each other for commands.
  • Only the graph static itself is renamed (plus internal generated helpers); node and resource-slot statics keep exactly their declared names — WIFI in a named graph is still WIFI. Two graphs reusing a node name in one module is therefore an ordinary duplicate-static error; the 256-node cap is per graph.

Observability

(feature family trace — all opt-in)

embassy-executor ships raw _embassy_trace_* instrumentation hooks that identify tasks only by an opaque u32. The trace feature makes the supervisor their batteries-included consumer: the generated spawn glue captures each SpawnToken's id into its node, so every executor poll is attributed to a named node — correctly across respawns.

  • Per node: accumulated poll time (exec_ticks), poll count, and the longest single poll ever (max_poll_ticks) — the "never yields" watermark that names a task that hogged its executor, even after the fact.
  • Per executor: a full time decomposition via trace::executor_stats — idle, in-poll (every task poll, supervised or not), and by subtraction the executor overhead (scheduler bookkeeping + hook cost + ISRs between polls) and the unsupervised-task share — plus poll/pass counters and the in-flight poll (trace::current_task / trace::stalled_task(executor, threshold) for live blocked-task detection from a context that can still run).
  • Counters are wrapping u32 ticks: sample twice, wrapping_sub, divide. The in-repo firmware's README covers how to read the numbers in practice (CPU%, busy% vs overhead, polls-per-pass as a wake-storm tell).

The split across the family: trace is recorders only; trace-hooks additionally emits the seven hook symbol definitions at the graph declaration site (exactly one set may exist per binary — define your own hooks and forward to the trace::on_* recorders if you need custom ones); metadata-names stamps node names into task Metadata for external tooling (SystemView, debuggers); trace-names is shorthand for trace + metadata-names; trace-nested makes accounting preemption-exact — a nested higher-tier poll credits its time back to the window it interrupted (register trace::set_core_id_fn on multi-core for one preemption stack per core).

metadata-names is independent of trace: it pulls only embassy-executor/metadata-name, not embassy-executor/trace, so it emits no _embassy_trace_* hook symbols and links cleanly on its own. That makes it the piece you want for a pure external tracer: enable metadata-names alongside embassy's own rtos-trace feature (which also pulls metadata-name) and SystemView shows your graph's node names — with none of the supervisor's recorder overhead and no hook-symbol requirement. Enabling trace/trace-names instead brings the recorders back and, as ever, requires the hook symbols (trace-hooks or your own).

Limitations: accounting is preemption-naive without trace-nested; hardware-ISR time is invisible either way; executor busy% exceeds the per-node sum by a per-poll accounting gap (ExecutorStats measures it as busy − in-poll); at most 4 executors are tracked. Parked / closure-spawned nodes register with one call: TaskNode::adopt(&token). The hook API is an executor implementation detail — this feature tracks the executor minor version the crate already pins.

Cargo features

feature default what it adds
control runtime control plane (ControlOp, request_control, apply_control)
pool elastic worker pools (ElasticPool, run_pools, GRAPH.pools)
macros the supervisor_graph! graph-declaration macro
local-resources permit the local resource kind — ⚠ opt-in to the macro emitting a documented unsafe impl Sync (single-core contract)
readiness task-asserted readiness: set_ready/wait_ready/clear_ready + the ready dep marker (bring-up + pool-growth gating)
liveness per-node heartbeat: beat() stamps the embassy-time clock, ticks_since_beat() -> u32 (embassy-time ticks), is_stale(max_age) — alive-but-wedged detection without trace. A fresh spawn counts as a beat, so a node is never instantly stale
heap-state state: Type = expr per-activation boxed state, reclaimed on task exit — ⚠ opt-in: emits the ~6-line fallible-boxing unsafe helper into your crate; needs a #[global_allocator]
defmt route the supervisor's logs through defmt (otherwise the log macros are no-ops)
trace trace-hook observability: per-node CPU time / poll counts / max-poll watermark, executor idle time, stall detection
trace-hooks batteries-included: the graph declaration also defines the _embassy_trace_* hook symbols (implies trace)
metadata-names stamp node names into task Metadata for external tooling (rtos-trace/SystemView); independent of trace — no hook symbols
trace-names shorthand for trace + metadata-names
trace-nested preemption-exact accounting: nested higher-tier polls are credited back to the window they interrupt (implies trace)

default-features = false gives a minimal core that only does dependency-ordered bring-up/teardown — dropping the control plane and pools trims flash and a couple of statics.

Testing on the host

The crate is HAL-free, so graphs run on a desktop for tests: embassy-executor's platform-std + executor-thread features give a std Executor to run on a thread, and embassy-time's mock-driver provides the clock (also enable critical-section/std). The whole harness is ~15 lines:

#[embassy_executor::task]
async fn driver(spawner: embassy_executor::Spawner) {
    let sup = Supervisor::new(&GRAPH);
    sup.start(spawner).await.expect("bring-up");
    // ... assertions, teardown/start cycles ...
    DONE.store(true, Ordering::Release);
}

fn main() {
    let clock = embassy_time::MockDriver::get();
    std::thread::spawn(|| {
        let ex: &'static mut embassy_executor::Executor =
            Box::leak(Box::new(embassy_executor::Executor::new()));
        ex.run(|spawner| spawner.spawn(driver(spawner).unwrap()));
    });
    while !DONE.load(Ordering::Acquire) {
        // Advance ONLY to observe a timeout (ShutdownTimeout / gate Busy) or
        // liveness staleness — cross-thread advance is sound.
        // clock.advance(embassy_time::Duration::from_millis(500));
        std::thread::sleep(std::time::Duration::from_millis(5));
    }
}

A frozen mock clock is fine on the happy paths — every wait resolves by signal (acks, slot fills, readiness), and the internal timeouts exist only to convert a failure into an error, so advance the clock only when a test wants to observe ShutdownTimeout, a gate Busy, or is_stale flipping (the liveness clock IS embassy-time, so the mock drives it too). heap-state needs no #[global_allocator] on the host — std provides one. The crate's own integration tests are all built this way.

no_std / MSRV

#![no_std] and #![forbid(unsafe_code)]. Requires Rust 1.85+ (edition 2024). The embassy dependencies are pre-1.0 (embassy-executor 0.10, embassy-sync 0.8, embassy-time 0.5), so a consuming application must use compatible embassy minor versions.

Full example

The firmware crate in the repository is a complete working application on an RP2350 — networking, an HTTP control plane, an elastic worker pool, multi-executor tiers on both cores, trace observability, and OTA firmware update — all driven by this supervisor.

Earlier release highlights

Condensed feature tours of past releases; the CHANGELOG is the authoritative history.

0.4.0

Ships with embassy-supervisor-macros 0.5.0 .

The release where the graph stopped being one flat literal per binary — fragments compose it across crates, name: gives a binary several of them, and start()/teardown() became a repeatable cycle — on a lifecycle core that now observes what it supervises: a task's own completion is recorded, readiness is asserted rather than assumed, control delivery is guaranteed, and every shutdown outcome is a value the application can act on.

  • Every outcome is a value (breaking). stop_node, teardown and apply_control return Result<(), ShutdownTimeout> naming the offending node (run_pools returns ShutdownTimeout), so a missed ack becomes an escalation the application owns — retry, log, reset — instead of a decision made inside the library; teardown stops the cascade at the first timeout so a still-live dependent never has its dependencies pulled out from under it, and teardown_continue() is the deliberate "hardware reset next" counterpart. request_control is async and awaits mailbox capacity, with try_request_control (Err(ControlQueueFull)) for ISRs and callbacks — a command is now either delivered or refused, never silently lost. See Migration.
  • Observed completion. mark_exited() / has_exited(): a body that returns is recorded as completed and its handshake acked, so a run-once task reads as finished and a control Activate can respawn it. That flag is also what makes a parked Pause instance distinguishable from an exited one, which is why start() is now the universal quiescent-to-running op — reset each node, skip running and detached ones, resume a parked one in place — making start()/teardown() a repeatable cycle for a subordinate sub-graph.
  • Composable graphs. supervisor_fragment! { name: X; <items> } lets a module or a whole crate declare its slice of the graph and compose_graph! assembles them into ONE expansion — cross-fragment deps resolve by name in either direction, every compile-time pass runs over the whole composed graph, and errors are attributed to the owning fragment. See Composing graphs.
  • Named multi-graphs. name: IDENT; as a graph's first item renames the emitted static and suffixes every generated helper, so several supervisors coexist per binary. The unnamed graph stays the primary (only it emits the trace-hooks symbols) and the control mailbox is shared — run ONE driver and apply each command to every supervisor. See Multiple graphs per binary.
  • readiness and liveness (both off by default). deps: [NET ready] holds a dependent's spawn until the provider calls set_ready() — a real rendezvous on "actually serving" (DHCP bound, registration done) rather than "spawned", bounded by the dependent's slot_timeout and then a SpawnError::Busy naming the not-ready dep. beat() + is_stale(max_age) catch the alive-but-wedged task an ack-based check cannot see. One AtomicBool + Signal + slice, and one AtomicU32, per node. See Readiness rendezvous.
  • heap-state (off by default). state: Type = init_expr on task: nodes and pool members: fallibly boxed per activation (alloc failure = SpawnError::Busy, retryable), lent to the worker as &mut Type, dropped on exit before restores — every activation allocates fresh, net zero across respawns, while task STORAGE stays static by soundness. See Heap and the graph.
  • Pools grew up. Take-kind resources: entries become per-member slot arrays (member I owns element I exclusively; a lend value survives shrink and regrow on the same index), min:/max: accept const-evaluable expressions guarded by const asserts, and ElasticPool::member_index(node) indexes per-member app state.
  • Also: exit: Type — the worker's return value lands in a generated <NODE>_EXIT slot just before the completion is recorded; run_cancellable / run_cancellable_acked as combinators; resume_node(), and activate/deactivate now public; and Supervisor::run(spawner), which is start() plus the pool-scaling and control loop in one call.

0.3.3

Ships with embassy-supervisor-macros 0.4.0 .

Three resources: kind markers — consume, shared, local — plus per-node slot_timeout: and the provider-node pattern: hardware init is now fully graph-managed across every power-state transition (cold boot, dormant wake, deep-sleep wake), and the hand-rolled statics, unsafe accessors, and panic-prone init getters they used to require are gone.

  • consume: drop-at-teardown / rebuild-per-cycle resources. The worker owns the value outright, so dropping it at teardown is part of the contract (a driver whose Drop releases pins and DMA channels), and the slot stays empty afterwards — a respawn fail-closes with SpawnError::Busy until the app provide()s a fresh instance, instead of silently reusing a driver that went stale across a power cycle.
  • local: !Send driver handles on a single core. RefCell-/NoopRawMutex-based handles — driver control handles, network-stack runners — can now ride resources:: the entry's slot is a graph-site type without the T: Send bound (it carries a documented unsafe impl Sync in your crate; single-core contract, and local + executor: is a compile error). Because that injects unsafe code, local requires the non-default local-resources feature (since 0.3.4).
  • shared: one Copy handle fanned out to many consumers. Several nodes — and whole task: pools — declare the SAME slot name (a network-stack handle, a &'static shared-bus ref); each spawn copies the value out non-destructively and the slot stays filled. This replaces the panicking-accessor pattern (an is-it-initialized-yet getter as a task: extra): a missing handle is now a gate-awaited, fail-closed SpawnError::Busy instead of a first-poll panic.
  • slot_timeout: + provider nodes. The pre-spawn slot/gate wait is per-node tunable (slot_timeout: 5000, TaskNode::with_slot_timeout), which makes an async hardware builder an ordinary graph node: build, provide(), park; consumers rendezvous on their gates — start() and every respawn_terminate() alike (the provider re-runs first, in topo order). See Provider node.
  • Also: per-entry #[cfg(...)] on resources: entries, and generated shells silence the unreachable_code warning for -> ! workers with restore-kind resources.

Combined, they make a whole radio bring-up fully graph-managed — a provider node builds the driver objects and provide()s them (RUNNER: local consume … for the owned !Send event loop, STACK: shared local … for the fanned-out handle), start() rendezvouses, teardown drops them, and the next wake cycle rebuilds and re-provides. See Resource kinds.

0.3.2

Ships with embassy-supervisor-macros 0.3.1 .

New metadata-names feature: stamp node names into task Metadata independently of the trace recorders (no _embassy_trace_* symbols). Use it to:

  • See graph node names in SystemView / a debugger while profiling on a J-Link — enable it next to embassy's rtos-trace and the timeline reads NET, HTTP, OTA instead of opaque task ids, with none of the supervisor's per-poll recorder overhead.
  • Get readable task names in a RAM dump or defmt task view on a shipping build where you don't want the trace layer's cost but still want to tell tasks apart in a crash log.

trace-names is now shorthand for trace + metadata-names, so the full trace layer (with names) is unchanged; the name stamp is just usable on its own now.

0.3.1

Ships with embassy-supervisor-macros 0.3.0 .

  • task: — generated shells. Declare a plain async worker fn — possibly generic — and the macro stamps its concrete #[embassy_executor::task] shell per declaration; a task: pool's shell is auto-sized to the member count. No attribute boilerplate, and the graph becomes the single place task plumbing lives (see spawn: vs task:task: is now the preferred form).
  • Safe resource threading. resources: [NAME: Type, ..] on a task: node emits a ResourceSlot<Type> static: main moves the peripheral in with provide() (consuming the Peripherals field — compile-time exclusive ownership, no steal() inside tasks), the glue take()s it before each (re)spawn (unprovided → SpawnError::Busy out of start(), fail-closed), the worker receives &mut Type, and the shell restore()s it on exit so a respawn re-takes the same instance. See resources:.
  • ResourceSlot / ResourceGate API. The slot type behind resources: is public and usable by hand — e.g. share one slot between the generated glue and a manual take()/restore() borrower elsewhere in the app; TaskNode::with_resources makes bring-up await provisioning (bounded, then SpawnError::Busy).
  • Pool structural consts. Each pool also emits NAME_MIN / NAME_MAX / NAME_MEMBERS (usize) for downstream const-context sizing (const SOCKET_BUDGET: usize = HTTP_MAX + 1;) — a const can't read them off the member static array.

Measured on the demo firmware (RP2350, release + fat LTO): the whole feature set costs ~1.5 KiB flash and a few dozen bytes of RAM; the generated shells add zero steady-state stack — a threaded resource travels inside the task's future.

Migration

0.4.0 → 0.4.1

Ships with embassy-supervisor-macros 0.6.0 (pinned by exact version — no action needed). Purely additive at run time, with one source-level catch: exit: declared on a worker that can never return is now a compile error instead of a slot nothing ever filled. If a graph hits it, drop the exit: clause — that worker never produced a value in the first place.

0.3 → 0.4

Ships with embassy-supervisor-macros 0.5.0 (pinned by exact version — no action needed). Everything else in 0.4.0 is additive; three edits cover the breaking surface, and the compiler finds all three:

0.3.x 0.4.0
request_control(cmd) (sync, silently dropped on a full mailbox) request_control(cmd).await (awaits capacity), or try_request_control(cmd)Err(ControlQueueFull) in a sync context (ISR, callback)
sup.stop_node(&N).await / teardown() / apply_control(..) panicked on a missed ack they return Result<(), ShutdownTimeout> (.node.name names the offender); .unwrap() restores the old behavior
sup.run_pools(spawner).await never returned returns ShutdownTimeout (only on a shrink whose member missed its ack)
a hand-written spawn: task calling node.ack_dropped() on exit call node.mark_exited() there instead (acks and records completion, so the node stops reading as running); ack_dropped() stays correct for a Pause node's park

teardown() now aborts at the first missed ack instead of stopping a wedged node's dependencies under it; teardown_continue() is the previous best-effort sweep, for the "hardware reset next" path. Generated task: shells call mark_exited() themselves, so a task:-only graph needs no task-side change at all.

Worth adopting, though nothing forces it: sup.run(spawner) replaces the hand-written start + select(run_pools, wait_control) driver, and node.run_cancellable_acked(fut) replaces the hand-written select against wait_shutdown().

0.2 → 0.3

Bring-up went async; the callers are already async tasks, so the change is mechanical:

0.2.x 0.3.0
sup.start(spawner)? sup.start(spawner).await?
sup.start_node(&N, spawner)? sup.start_node(&N, spawner).await?
sup.respawn_terminate(spawner)? sup.respawn_terminate(spawner).await?
explicit SLOT.ready().await before start() no longer needed — start awaits each executor: node's slot itself

0.1 → 0.2

0.1.x 0.2.0
task_graph! { &A, &B } supervisor_graph! { node A = ...; node B = ...; }
Supervisor::new(&ALL_NODES, &DEPS, ORDER) Supervisor::new(&GRAPH)
.with_pools(POOLS) gone — pools ride in GRAPH
NODE_COUNT GRAPH.nodes.len()

License

Dual-licensed under either MIT or Apache-2.0, at your option.