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Crazyflie bootloader

This module provides access to the Crazyflie bootloader as well as the deck flashing subsystem. It supports the following commands:

Usage: cfcli bootload <COMMAND>

Commands:
  info      Print bootloader information
  releases  List available releases
  targets   List of hardcoded targets
  flash     Flash firmware to the device
  help      Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Show bootloader information

This command shows you the bootloader version and other related information of the connected Crazyflie.

cfcli bootload info

List available releases

This command will list the available releases from the Crazyflie release repository.

cfcli bootload releases

Flash firmware

Using the flash command you can flash releases, local ZIP files and BIN files. It's also possible to combine the commands, where BIN files will take precidence over files in the release or ZIP files.

Flash firmware to the device

Usage: cfcli bootload flash [OPTIONS] <--release [<RELEASE>]|--zip <ZIP>|--bin <BIN>>

Options:
      --release [<RELEASE>]
          Release name, interactive selection if left blank (cannot be combined with zip)

      --zip <ZIP>
          Release ZIP file path (cannot be combined with release)

      --bin <BIN>
          Comma-separated list of key=value pairs for targets and binary files.
          Note that these will override any files in release or zip.
          Optionally append @address or @page to the target to override the
          flash start location. Use 0x prefix for addresses, bare numbers for pages.

          Example: stm32-fw=cf2_stm.bin,nrf51-fw=cf2_nrf.bin
          Example: stm32-fw@0x08004000=custom.bin (flash at address 0x08004000)
          Example: stm32-fw@16=custom.bin (flash at page 16)

      --targets [<TARGETS>]
          Comma-separated list of targets to flash, interactive selection if
          left blank. By default all targets found in the release/zip/bin will
          be flashed.
          
          Example: stm32-fw,nrf51-fw

      --cold
          Use coldboot (i.e rescue mode) to flash the device

Flash examples

Releases

The following command will let you flash a release (which you select) and only flash the specified targets (which you select):

cfcli bootload flash --release --targets

The following command will flash the 2025.12 release to the nRF51 (FW) and to the top Color LED deck:

cfcli bootload flash --release 2025.12 --targets nrf51-fw,bcColorLedTop:col-fw

ZIP files

The following command will let you flash the firmware in a ZIP package and only flash the specified targets (which you select):

cfcli bootload flash --zip my-fw.zip --targets

You can also specify exactly which targets to flash from the ZIP:

cfcli bootload flash ---zip my-fw.zip --targets nrf51-fw,bcColorLedTop:col-fw

BIN files (and overloading)

When flashing BIN files any files you specify will overload the files in the release or ZIP file. Since the bin files do not contain where they should be flashed you can either set the target on the commandline or leave it blank to select.

The following command will promt you to select what target to flash the firmware bin to:

cfcli bootload flash --bin firmware.bin

It's also possible to set the target directly and also to flash multiple bins. The command below will promt you for where you want to flash color-led-firmware.bin and will then flash it to the selected target as well as flashing the nrf51-firmware.bin to the nRF51.

cfcli bootload flash --bin nrf51-fw=nrf51-firmware.bin,color-led-firmware.bin

The bin parameter can be combined with either release or zip to flash firmware from these sources but overloaded with the binaries supplied. This command will download and flash the 2025.12 release, but replace the nRF51 binary with the custom-nrf51-firmware.bin file:

cfcli bootload flash --release 2025.12 --bin nrf51-fw=custom-nrf51-firmware.bin

Flashing at a custom address or page

By default, BIN files are flashed at the start address reported by the bootloader. You can override this by appending @ followed by an address or page number to the target key. A 0x prefix indicates an address, a bare decimal number indicates a page.

Flash the STM32 firmware at a specific address:

cfcli bootload flash --bin stm32-fw@0x08004000=custom-stm.bin

Flash the STM32 firmware at a specific page:

cfcli bootload flash --bin stm32-fw@16=custom-stm.bin

This can be combined with other targets as usual:

cfcli bootload flash --bin stm32-fw@0x08004000=custom-stm.bin,nrf51-fw=cf2_nrf.bin

Recovery mode boot

In order to access the recovery mode booting use the --cold option. If this is enabled the URI set using select will be disregarded and the default will be used.

cfcli bootload flash --release 2025.12 --cold