Binary Descriptors

Binary descriptors embed firmware version and git revision directly into firmware images using Zephyr’s bindesc subsystem. This allows the version and source revision of a firmware binary to be extracted without running it.

Enabled Descriptors

Both the SMC and DMC firmware images embed the following descriptors:

Descriptor	Type	Description
`APP_VERSION_STRING`	STR	Semantic version from the app’s `VERSION` file (e.g. `"0.28.0-rc1"`).
`APP_BUILD_VERSION`	STR	Git revision from `git describe` (e.g. `"v19.6.0-rc1-3-gb7209fb40886"`).

The version string is sourced from each application’s VERSION file (app/smc/VERSION, app/dmc/VERSION). The git revision is generated automatically by the build system using git describe.

Reading Descriptors

Zephyr’s west bindesc extension can list or search for descriptors:

# List all descriptors in an image
west bindesc list build/smc/zephyr/zephyr.bin

# Search for a specific descriptor
west bindesc search APP_VERSION_STRING build/smc/zephyr/zephyr.bin