Platform | ForgeIEC

What the platform delivers

ForgeIEC is a complete platform for industrial automation — from programming to operation. Current state: preview version 0.2 (0.2.2), in pilot operation at the SoLaWi Ackervielfalt. Every component carries the name of a blacksmith’s tool and has a clearly defined remit. Components are standalone daemons or applications, jointly running over zero-copy IPC and gRPC.

	Component	Remit	Status
	ForgeIEC Studio	IEC 61131-3 IDE + bus config + AI assistant	ST editor in use, LD/FBD/SFC planned: 0.3/0.4/0.5
	Anvil server (anvild)	PLC runtime + Anvil bus (iceoryx2) between the processes	in use
🔧	tongs-*	Fieldbus bridges: Modbus TCP/RTU available, LoRaWAN in progress (focus), EtherCAT / PROFIBUS / EtherNet/IP as skeleton	mixed
🏠	Hearth	Operator interface (HMI), reads process data directly from the Anvil bus	preview
🖥️	Screen	Industrial kiosk browser (HMI panel)	available as package
	bellowsd	OPC-UA / HMI gateway	resting — not in development
📒	Ledger	Order management / MES integration	planned

The components

🛠️ ForgeIEC Studio — the workbench

Affects: ForgeIEC Studio

Native C++/Qt6 IDE on the workstation (Linux; a Windows build exists, installer on request). Structured Text (ST) with an own, object-oriented-capable compiler core is in use; LD, FBD and SFC are planned for releases 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 (roadmap), IL is deprecated. Bus configuration, live monitor, oscilloscope, AI assistant built in. Tree-sitter syntax, gRPC link to anvild, MCP server for LLM tooling.

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🔥 Anvil server (anvild) — the runtime + Anvil bus

Affects: Anvil server (anvild)

Rust/Tokio daemon on the target PLC. Multi-task scheduler with pthread parallelism, deterministic scan cycles, gRPC listener for Studio, subprocess manager for the bus bridges.

Built in is Anvil — the Anvil bus, a zero-copy shared-memory layer based on iceoryx2, between runtime, bridges and external subscribers. ABI probe against type-hash drift; segments of crashed peers are reaped automatically, without touching live peers. Wire protocol for status, I/O, diagnostics.

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🌬️ bellowsd — the bellows

Affects: bellowsd

Resting

bellowsd is currently not in development. The package forgeiec-bellows-server stays in the APT repository but is not being developed further. Hearth is the intended operator interface.

Designed as an OPC-UA server + Modbus TCP server for HMI integration: pool variables with the bellows_export flag as OPC-UA nodes + Modbus coils, enabled individually per variable.

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🔧 tongs-* — the fieldbus tongs

Affects: tongs-* Anvil server (anvild)

One daemon per protocol. Uniform fault model (OK/WARN/FAULT/OFFLINE/UNKNOWN), FDD-driven diagnostic bits, Anvil zero-copy IPC to the runtime. Modbus TCP and Modbus RTU are available; LoRaWAN (wireless sensors for agriculture and wide-area plants) is in progress and has priority; for EtherCAT, PROFIBUS and EtherNet/IP the skeleton exists, the protocol itself is in progress.

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🖥️ Screen — the kiosk browser

Affects: Screen

CEF-based industrial kiosk browser (Chromium Embedded Framework

Rust + winit). Runs fullscreen on HMI panels, opens any web HMI (Hearth or third-party). Integrated Rocket web server for settings (network, WireGuard, time zone, 80+ languages), D-Bus backend for NetworkManager / timedated / localed.

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🏠 Hearth — the forge hearth

Affects: Hearth

Operator interface (HMI), as a preview. Hearth reads the process data directly from the Anvil bus (iceoryx2, without copying) — the same path the runtime uses internally; anvild writes the matching descriptor to /etc/forgeiec/hearth/descriptor.toml. Available as the forgeiec-hearth-server package in the APT and RPM repositories.

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📒 Ledger — the order book

Affects: Ledger

Order management + MES integration. Plans: production orders, piece-count tracking, traceability (material → batch → product), shift log, bridge to ERP systems. Planned — comes after Hearth.

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How the components fit together

flowchart LR
    Studio[ForgeIEC Studio<br/>IDE + AI]
    Anvild[Anvil server<br/>anvild]
    Bridges["tongs-*<br/>Fieldbus bridges"]
    Screen[Screen<br/>Kiosk browser]
    Hearth[Hearth<br/>HMI, preview]
    Ledger[Ledger<br/>MES]

    Studio -.->|gRPC| Anvild
    Anvild -->|Anvil IPC| Bridges
    Anvild -->|Anvil IPC| Hearth
    Hearth -->|HTTP| Screen
    Hearth -.->|REST| Ledger

Studio lives on the workstation, everything else on the target systems. Workstations + target systems can be linked together via the team federation model — multiple workstations see their machines.

Licence, source code and origin

Licence. The ForgeIEC tools and services are licensed under AGPL-3.0-or-later. Your project belongs to you: the generated control code, the runtime API headers and the libanvil library are licensed under Apache-2.0 — you may build your own closed libraries on top. If you cannot accept the AGPL, you can obtain a commercial licence.

The source code is under the AGPL; access on request (enabled via SSH key, see Partner). Delivery is through signed packages from an automated CI: a signed APT repository for Debian/Ubuntu and a signed RPM repository for AlmaLinux 9 and Fedora 44.

ForgeIEC started as a fork of OpenPLC (Thiago Alves); the matiec compiler was replaced by an own, object-oriented-capable core. The founding story tells the path.

The tools of the forge.

blacksmith@forgeiec.io