Yocto Project

What it does

Build system

The project combines OpenEmbedded-Core and BitBake as its build system, along with Poky as a reference configuration.checked 8 Oct 2026

Build workflow

The build system can fetch source from tarballs or Git repositories, apply patches, run quality checks, and produce package feeds and filesystem images.checked 8 Oct 2026

Community support

The project invites participation through public mailing lists, chat, working groups, discussions, documentation, bug fixes, and events.checked 8 Oct 2026

Compatible ecosystem

The Yocto Project Compatible designation applies to qualifying products and software components such as BSPs, OpenEmbedded-compatible layers, and related open source projects.checked 8 Oct 2026

Customization

Its Layer Model lets developers share, reuse, and customize repositories of build instructions.checked 8 Oct 2026

Governance

The project is a collaborative project under the Linux Foundation umbrella with governance led by maintainers and coordinated by its Governance Board.checked 8 Oct 2026

Hardware support

The project is designed to support custom systems regardless of hardware architecture.checked 8 Oct 2026

Host environment

The project says most developers use a Linux development host.checked 8 Oct 2026

Purpose

The Yocto Project provides templates, tools, and methods for creating custom Linux-based systems for embedded deployments, servers, and virtual environments.checked 8 Oct 2026

Reference distribution limit

Poky is a working build example and starting point for customization, not a product-level distribution, and it does not contain binary files.checked 8 Oct 2026

Release support

The releases page lists Yocto 6.0 Wrynose as LTS until April 2030 and 5.0 Scarthgap as LTS until April 2028.checked 8 Oct 2026

Security and compliance tools

Integrated tools support security analysis, license compliance, and SPDX software manifests (SBOMs).checked 8 Oct 2026

Security reporting

Public security issues can be reported through Security Bugzilla, while urgent or unpublished issues can be emailed to the monitored security team.checked 8 Oct 2026