bakar: the wrapper Yocto teams keep writing by hand

TL;DR: bakar is a Python CLI that wraps kas and kas-container for Yocto Board Support Package (BSP) builds. It defaults to container builds via kas-container when KAS_CONTAINER_IMAGE is set, and falls back to plain kas on the host when it is not. Pass --host to any subcommand to force host mode. On top of kas, bakar adds pre-flight environment checks before the build starts, applies a curated tuning overlay (ccache, fetch mirrors, reproducibility knobs) without modifying your YAML on disk, writes structured per-run logs, and provides bakar triage to locate the failing recipe after a crash. For vendor BSPs that ship as repo manifests (NXP i.MX) or oe-layertool configs (TI Sitara), it translates those to kas YAMLs automatically. For projects initialized with bitbake-setup (the official Yocto 5.3+ workspace tool), bakar detects the workspace automatically, translates the JSON layer config to a kas YAML, and drives the same pipeline. Install: uv tool install bakar. ...

May 23, 2026 · 10 min · Javier Tia · Updated: May 29, 2026

What's Next: Available for New Opportunities

At the end of March 2026 I was laid off from Linaro as part of a round of cuts. After 3.5 years working on upstream kernel enablement, embedded security, and CI/CD infrastructure for ARM-based platforms, it came as a surprise - but I am using the time well. What I have been doing since The upstream work did not stop. I currently have three active patch series under review: An 18-patch WiFi 7 series on linux-wireless@ adding full support for the MediaTek MT7927 (Filogic 380) to the mt76/mt7925 driver. The series is at v4, community-tested across 10+ hardware platforms with 9 Tested-by tags from ASUS, Lenovo, Foxconn, and AMD. Phoronix covered it: MediaTek MT7927 WiFi 7 Linux Support Coming Together. ...

April 1, 2026 · 2 min · Javier Tia