For Developers

Welcome to VOLTTRON™

It’s versatile and easy to use. VOLTTRON™ provides an environment where data and devices connect seamlessly and securely to make decisions based on user needs and preferences.

Applications can readily be developed on top of this open source, distributed sensing and control platform for any need that requires collection, management and analysis of data streams. This includes improving energy efficiency in buildings, monitoring the performance of building systems, supporting grid services, coordinating connected homes, managing data and more.

The VOLTTRON™ platform has been developed in Python and makes use of numerous open source libraries. The project includes "base" classes and "helper" utilities that support rapid development and deployment of applications. The goal is to ensure that developers can focus on their algorithms and not worry about interactions with the platform.

VOLTTRON™ Resources

The VOLTTRON™ development team supports the wider community through numerous resources in an effort to maximize transparency and simplify working with the platform. The project is hosted on GitHub for source control, issue tracking, and documentation. Visit Read the Docs for more information.

Office Hours: Stay in touch with our developers by signing up for VOLTTRON™ Office Hours. Meetings occur every other week (Fridays at 11 a.m. PT) and are attended by the development team and members of the community. There may be select topics, but meetings are intended to provide an open forum for questions ranging from "How do I get started?" to detailed discussions of a specific VOLTTRON™ feature. See recordings from previous Office Hour meetings below. Email to join.

Mailing Lists: Join our volttron-dev mailing list to stay informed on VOLTTRON™ news and updates. Anyone can sign up for these periodic emails. Email to be added.

Code Repository


VOLTTRON™ development team.
Front row left to right: Jereme Haack, Bora Akyol, Poorva Sharma, Chandrika
Sivaramakrishnan, Craig Allwardt
Back row left to right: Robert Lutes, Zach Beech, Kyle Monson, Joe Chapman, Michael
Roup

On GitHub, there are different branches for the VOLTTRON™ project at different levels of stability and latest features. When the project is cloned, the default branch is "master" which contains the latest release of VOLTTRON™. The "develop" branch is the current development branch of the project with the latest completed features but requiring further integration testing before being promoted to a release. From there, "feature" branches contain code which is still in development and, therefore, the least stable.

As an open source project, VOLTTRON™ users are encouraged to contribute back to the community. Applications, new services, bug fixes, etc. can all be contributed back to the project through a GitHub pull request. A pull request allows the development team to review the changes and accept them into the codebase.

VOLTTRON™ development is directed by the needs of the community. Feature requests and bug reports should be entered as a Git issue. This notifies the development team and allows others to comment as well.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact the VOLTTRON™ team at and the wider community through the resources listed above. We look forward to working with you and are excited by the possibilities this technology can achieve.