Motion Master v6 Discussions: ask, propose, report

[markosankovic]

Welcome — this is where Motion Master v6 gets shaped

Motion Master v6 is a clean-sheet rewrite: a local daemon that talks EtherCAT to your drives and exposes everything it knows over HTTP (61447) and a WebSocket (62281) — plus the Console, an installable browser app that drives it entirely through that same API. It is in active development — 6.0.0-alpha.79 today, beta at the end of 2026, v6.0.0 in Q1 2027.

Until the beta, the API is deliberately unfrozen. That is the whole reason for this space: it is much cheaper to change v6 now than after we stand behind it. If something is missing, awkward, misnamed, or wrong for your workflow, this is the moment it costs us almost nothing to fix.

Try it first, then come back with opinions:

• Console (no install needed to look around): https://motion-master.synapticon.com
• Install a release: Releases — Linux x64/arm64 (.deb, .rpm, tarball), Windows .zip, macOS arm64 tarball, Docker image
• API reference, endpoint by endpoint: API Docs — rendered from the OpenAPI spec
• The capability tour: FEATURES.md — what each feature is for, when the endpoint list alone doesn't tell you
• Why it is built this way, including rejected alternatives: NEXTGEN.md
• The full announcement: ANNOUNCEMENT.md

What to bring here

Ask a question. How do I get a drive from a box of parts to a moving axis? Why does my SDO read report no response — mailbox timeout? How do I script this from Python? Which capability am I missing on Linux? No question is too basic — if the Console or the docs did not answer it, that is a documentation bug and we want to hear it.

Propose a feature. Tell us the workflow, not the implementation: what you are trying to do, what you do today instead, and what makes it painful. A concrete "I need to run 12 axes through a coordinated ramp and record the result" is worth more than "add trajectories". Known-still-ahead work is listed in ANNOUNCEMENT.md — trajectory playback in the RT context, off-RT procedures (offset/commutation detection, auto-tuning, firmware install), notification bus, SPoE driver, Raspberry Pi appliance, DC SYNC0, WKC health timeline. Say if one of those is blocking you and it moves up.

Report something broken. Bug reports against an alpha are worth far more to us than bug reports against a release. Useful ones usually include:

• the version (motion-master --version, or the badge in the Console sidebar)
• the OS and how you installed it (deb/rpm/tarball/zip/Docker)
• the device(s) and firmware on the bus
• what you did, what happened, what you expected
• the relevant log lines (GET /api/log, or the Console's Log page) — and, for anything cyclic, a .mmpd dump from POST /api/process-data/dump, which the Console's Recorder page can open

Show what you built. The whole thing is extensible on purpose — a web app under web/apps/, a C++ route plug-in under /api/<yourapp>/..., or a cyclic task inside the RT loop. If you build one, post it. The starters are web/apps/example and libs/example.

Discussions vs. Issues

Not a rule to police, just what works: start here when you are not sure it is a defect, when it is a question, or when it is a design/API opinion. We will turn anything actionable into an issue and link it back, so nothing gets lost in a thread. If you already know it is a reproducible bug and you have the details above, open an issue directly.

Ground rules

Two, and they are the same two the code follows: be specific (a version, a device, a log line beats an adjective), and be direct — "this API is wrong and here is why" is a welcome comment, not a rude one. We would rather argue about a name now than live with it until 2037.

To get started

Comment below and tell us: which devices are you on, and what are you trying to do with Motion Master? Even a one-liner helps — it tells us what to build next.

— The OBLAC team