CMake can be used as an external tool (by default) or as a plugin in your IDE. The default CMake tool actually encapsulates 2 tools in it:

1. cmake - Terminal tool used to invoke CMake commands from the command line
2. cmake-gui - GUI tool used to invoke CMake command using a graphical interface

Both provide the same functionality, however, the cmake-gui might be easier to operate most of the times.

Since using the terminal version of CMake, cmake, is a bit more complicated, we've decided to list some common use cases regarding the Arduino-CMake project.

The simplest task that could be done with cmake to use Arduino-CMake is including its' toolchain file. You can accomplish that by executing cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=[PATH_TO_TOOLCHAIN].cmake [PATH_TO_SOURCE_DIR] in the terminal where:

• [PATH_TO_TOOLCHAIN] - Path to Arduino-CMake's toolchain file
• [PATH_TO_SOURCE_DIR] - Path to the project's main directory

The same task can also be accomplished by setting a variable in the CMakeLists.txt file of the project.

Note: We strongly recommend to prefer setting a variable in CMakeLists.txt instead of setting a build option in terminal since it's easily forgotten, leading to failing reloads or builds.