Skip to main content

Quickstart

This guide walks you through creating your first workspace on a Jetson device, adding dependencies, and running code.

Verify your hardware

First, confirm jnc can detect your Jetson:
jnc probe
You should see output like:
{
  "arch": "aarch64",
  "l4t": "36.4.0",
  "jetpack": "6.1",
  "cuda": "12.2",
  "module": "Jetson Orin Nano",
  "compute_capability": "8.7"
}

Create a workspace

jnc init my-jetson-app
cd my-jetson-app
This creates a pixi.toml manifest file that defines your workspace’s dependencies, tasks, and target platform.

Add dependencies

Install packages from the conda ecosystem:
jnc add python numpy opencv
This resolves compatible versions, updates the manifest, and creates a lock file (pixi.lock) for reproducibility.

Set system requirements

Specify the L4T version your workspace requires. This ensures dependency resolution picks packages compatible with your Jetson: Edit pixi.toml and add:
[system-requirements]
l4t = "36"

Run commands

Run any command inside the workspace environment:
jnc run python -c "import cv2; print(f'OpenCV {cv2.__version__}')"

Define tasks

Add reusable tasks to your manifest:
jnc task add check-gpu "python -c 'import torch; print(torch.cuda.is_available())'"
Run them by name:
jnc run check-gpu

Enter the environment shell

Start an interactive shell with all dependencies available:
jnc shell
python -c "import numpy; print('Ready for development!')"
exit

What’s in the manifest?

After these steps, your pixi.toml looks something like:
[project]
name = "my-jetson-app"
channels = ["conda-forge"]
platforms = ["linux-aarch64"]

[system-requirements]
l4t = "36"

[dependencies]
python = ">=3.12,<4"
numpy = ">=2.2,<3"
opencv = ">=4.10,<5"

[tasks]
check-gpu = "python -c 'import torch; print(torch.cuda.is_available())'"

Next steps

  • Basic Usage — common workflows at a glance
  • Environments — manage separate dependency sets for inference, training, etc.
  • Tasks — advanced task configuration
  • CLI Reference — complete command documentation