Help

Help and Resources

Welcome to the ForgeIEC help section. Here you will find information about the fundamentals of our project and our philosophy.

Topics

Online Help

Entry point for the editor’s context-sensitive help. F1 in the editor opens exactly the matching page on this site. URL scheme and topic slugs are described there.

FAQ

Growing collection of common questions + practical solutions. Starts with one classic symptom (variable sticks despite a fresh deploy) and grows with every new observed case.

AI integration

How to use the built-in AI assistant in ForgeIEC Studio: personas, providers (ChatGPT / Claude / local), daily operation, security model, team mode for multiple workstations. Plus an architecture deep-dive for security auditors.

MCP protocol

The protocol layer under the AI assistant — for application engineers connecting their own scripts/tools, and for IT/operations deploying, monitoring, and troubleshooting.

Other sections

• Download — all components + APT setup
• News — release notes + technical updates

Bus Configuration

PLCopen XML schema for industrial fieldbus configuration in .forge projects. Segments, devices, variable binding and IEC address assignment.

Test Coverage

62 automated test programs (as of 22 Oct 2026) verify the IEC 61131-3 language feature set, the standard library blocks and the multi-task threading system.

Open Source Philosophy

The idea behind open source goes far beyond software — it is a movement that liberates knowledge and democratizes innovation.

Getting Started

To get started you need two packages:

1. ForgeIEC Studio (forgeiec-studio, program forgeiec) — the development environment on your workstation
2. Anvil server (anvild) (forgeiec-anvil-server, program anvil-server) — the runtime system on the target PLC

All other components are listed on the platform page.

Installation from the ForgeIEC APT Repository

ForgeIEC is provided as a signed Debian repository at apt.forgeiec.io. Setup is a one-time step on each workstation or target PLC:

# Import signing key
sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://apt.forgeiec.io/forgeiec.gpg \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/forgeiec.gpg >/dev/null

# Add repository source
# (Debian 12 "bookworm" or Debian 13 "trixie" — match your system)
echo "deb [arch=amd64,arm64,armhf signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/forgeiec.gpg] \
https://apt.forgeiec.io/trixie trixie main" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/forgeiec.list

sudo apt update

Then install any ForgeIEC package using the standard package manager:

# Editor (Workstation)
sudo apt install forgeiec-studio

# Daemon (Target PLC)
sudo apt install forgeiec-anvil-server

Updates follow the normal apt update && apt upgrade lifecycle — no manual .deb files needed.

Supported Platforms

Studio, device descriptions, Hearth and the HMI panel are also available as RPMs for AlmaLinux 9 and Fedora 44 at rpm.forgeiec.io (the runtime not yet). A Windows build of the Studio exists; the installer is available on request. The full package/platform matrix is on the download page.

Contact

For questions, reach out to: blacksmith@forgeiec.io