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Validating a Board Setup#

You've wired up a new EVB (or a bench you haven't touched in a while) and before you trust any profiling numbers off it, you want proof the whole chain — toolchain, probe, flash, capture — actually works. hpx validate runs the canonical MLPerf Tiny models end-to-end against real hardware and reports pass/fail per case. This guide walks the path from "does anything work" to a wider confidence sweep.

1. Confirm the host side first#

Before touching hardware, make sure the toolchain and Python dependencies are present:

hpx doctor

Toolchain Check
╭────┬────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────╮
│ ✓  │ ARM GCC toolchain                  │ /usr/local/arm-gnu-toolchain/bin/… │
│ ✓  │ CMake (>= 3.24)                    │ /home/you/.local/bin/cmake         │
│ ✓  │ SEGGER J-Link commander            │ /usr/bin/JLinkExe                  │
╰────┴────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────╯

  All required tools found.

2. Confirm the probe is visible#

hpx probes list

serial      product                    connection
----------  -------------------------  ----------
801000001  J-Link-OB-Apollo4-CortexM  USB

If you have more than one probe connected and need to know which one HPX will pick for a given board:

hpx probes match --board apollo510_evb

This resolves the serial using HPX's normal selection policy — the same logic hpx profile and hpx validate use — so you can catch a misidentified probe before a run, not during one.

3. Run the smoke suite#

--suite smoke is the fastest useful check: one model (kws), heliaRT, GCC, RTT, auto placement, power off.

hpx validate --suite smoke --list

Registered models: ad, ic, kws, vww
Registered boards: apollo330mP_evb, apollo3p_evb, apollo4p_blue_kxr_evb, apollo510_evb

1 case(s) would run:

  apollo510_evb-kws-rt-arm-none-eabi-gcc-rtt-auto      helia-rt   arm-none-eabi-gcc   rtt   auto

--list previews the matrix without touching hardware — always check it before running blind, especially once you start widening axes. Drop --list to actually run it:

hpx validate --suite smoke

4. Interpret the results#

Each case gets its own artifact directory under --output-dir (default ./results/validation), plus two summary reports at the top level: validation_report.md (human-readable, one row per case with status, duration, cycles, and any error note) and validation_report.json / validation_manifest.json (machine-readable, with paths to each case's summary.json, run_metadata.json, and build/work directories).

cat results/validation/validation_report.md

# heliaPROFILER - Hardware Validation Report

- total: **1**
- pass: **1**
- fail: **0**
- skip: **0**

| Case | Status | Duration (s) | Toolchain | Interface | Memory | Layers | Cycles | ... |
|------|--------|-------------:|-----------|-----------|--------|-------:|-------:|-----|
| apollo510_evb-kws-rt-... | pass | 42.3 | arm-none-eabi-gcc | rtt | auto | 13 | 2016376 | ... |

A fail row's Notes column carries the error — check the case's own summary.json/run_metadata.json (paths are in the manifest) for the full picture before re-running.

5. Widen the matrix once smoke passes#

Each axis is an independent comma-separated flag; unset axes fall back to board defaults (or, for --suite, the suite's preset defaults). Explicit flags always win over the suite preset:

hpx validate --models kws,ic --engines helia-rt --boards apollo510_evb \
    --toolchains gcc,atfe --interfaces rtt --memories auto,tcm --list

Two broader presets exist for common sweeps:

hpx validate --suite models-rt --list    # 16 cases: 2 boards x 4 models x 2 toolchains, helia-rt
hpx validate --suite models-aot --list   # 12 cases: 3 boards x 4 models, gcc, helia-aot

For multi-board setups, map each board to its own probe serial so the runner doesn't have to guess:

hpx validate --boards apollo510_evb,apollo3p_evb \
    --jlink-serials apollo510_evb=801000001,apollo3p_evb=801000002

6. Use --repeat for stability checks#

A single pass proves the chain can work; it doesn't prove it works reliably (flaky USB, marginal wiring, intermittent flash). --repeat N runs each selected case N times and reports every run:

hpx validate --suite smoke --repeat 3

Require every repeat to pass before trusting a bench for unattended runs — a case that's flaky at --repeat 2 will be flaky in CI.

Where to go deeper#

  • hpx validate --help — every flag, alias, and the built-in suite descriptions.
  • Hardware Validation Artifacts — what's written to disk and how to wire hpx validate into CI.
  • Boards & Platforms — board IDs and per-board defaults referenced by the axis flags above.