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Quickstart

Get the PreciCore stack running locally in a few minutes. This guide walks you through connecting a minimal Spine node, running CrackHead in simulation, and piping keyboard input through Purifier.

Prerequisites​

DependencyVersionNotes
Go1.21+For spine-go and kinematics-engine
Python3.10+Optional, for spine-py nodes
MuJoCo3.xRequired for CrackHead simulation
C++ toolchainC++17Required for spine-cpp and crack-head-cpp

Install MuJoCo from the official releases. Set MUJOCO_PATH to your install directory.

1 — Run your first Spine node​

Install spine-go:

go get github.com/poisnoir/spine-go

Create a file main.go:

package main

import "github.com/poisnoir/spine-go"

func main() {
    node := spine.NewNode("my-node")

    node.Subscribe("input/clean", func(msg spine.Msg) {
        // handle incoming messages
        _ = msg.Data
    })

    node.Publish("arm/target", []byte(`{"q":[0,0,0,0,0]}`))

    node.Start() // blocks; discovers peers via mDNS
}

Run it:

go run main.go

The node will start and broadcast its presence on the local network via mDNS. Any other Spine node on the same network will discover it automatically.

2 — Connect keyboard input​

Clone and run the keyboard input node:

git clone https://github.com/poisnoir/keyboard
cd keyboard
go run .

The keyboard node publishes raw operator commands to input/raw. From there, Purifier picks them up and pushes filtered commands to input/clean.

Key controls: W/S (Y-axis), A/D (X-axis), Q/E (Z-axis), Esc (emergency stop).

See Keyboard for the full key mapping.

3 — Start CrackHead simulation​

Clone and build the simulator:

git clone https://github.com/poisnoir/crack-head-cpp
cd crack-head-cpp
cmake -B build && cmake --build build
./build/crack-head

CrackHead will discover the other nodes via mDNS and begin subscribing to arm/target. The simulated arm will move in response to commands from the Kinematics Engine.

4 — Full pipeline​

Once all nodes are running on the same network, the complete pipeline activates automatically:

Keyboard → input/raw → Purifier → input/clean → Kinematics Engine → arm/target → CrackHead

No manual wiring required — mDNS handles discovery, and AES-GCM encrypts all traffic within a namespace.

Next steps​