Inspect and Configure SKU

Your VOXL or VOXL development kit ships with a SKU number written to a persistent data partition at /data/modalai/sku.txt. The SKU describes exactly what product the compute board is installed in — which vehicle, which compute board, which cameras, radios, and add-ons — and it is the single input that drives all automatic configuration: voxl-configure-mpa reads it to decide which services to enable and how each should be configured.

Because /data is a persistent partition, the SKU survives system image flashes: a reflashed VOXL still remembers what vehicle it is in.

Generally speaking, you should not need to change the SKU unless you are transferring a VOXL to a different product or changing which cameras it is connected to. However, it is useful to know what it is and what it means.

Table of Contents

1. Table of Contents
2. Decode a SKU
3. Inspect SKU
4. Anatomy of the SKU Number
5. Field Reference Tables
   1. Family codes
   2. Board codes
   3. RC transmitter configs
   4. Modem configs
   5. Extras configs
6. Configure SKU
   1. Interactive: the wizard
   2. Scripted: command-line arguments
7. Using the SKU in Your Own Scripts
8. Source Code

Decode a SKU

Paste any ModalAI SKU to break it into its parts (decoded with the same tables voxl-configurator uses on the vehicle):

Inspect SKU

To inspect the SKU of your device, first access the device with adb shell. Then use the voxl-inspect-sku command to get a printout like this:

voxl2:/$ voxl-inspect-sku

family code:   MRB-D0014 (starling-2)
compute board: 4 (voxl2)
hw version:    1
cam config:    27
modem config:  0 (none)
tx config:     7 (elrs_beta_fpv)
extras config: 0 (none)
SKU:           MRB-D0014-4-V1-C27-T7

A few useful options:

voxl-inspect-sku --json               # same information as machine-readable JSON
voxl-inspect-sku --quiet              # validate only; exit code says if the SKU parses
voxl-inspect-sku --sku MRB-D0006-4-V2-C6   # parse any SKU string without touching the device's own

The --sku form is handy for previewing what a SKU you are about to set actually means, and --json is the right interface for scripts and programs that need SKU fields.

Anatomy of the SKU Number

ModalAI SKU numbers follow this structure:

MRB-D0014 - 4 - V1 - C27 - T7 - M0 - X0
    │       │    │    │     │    │    └── extras config
    │       │    │    │     │    └── modem config
    │       │    │    │     └── RC transmitter config
    │       │    │    └── camera config
    │       │    └── hardware version
    │       └── board code
    └── family code

The first two fields — family code and board code — are fixed and always present. Every field after them is a letter-prefixed tag, so their order does not matter and missing fields simply take their defaults:

An E-prefixed experimental field also exists for internal development tweaks; production SKUs do not carry it.

Two families are special cases with simpler SKUs: board-only families (MCCA-…) imply their board code and hardware version, and VRX receiver families (MVX-R…) only carry a hardware version and modem config since they have no cameras or RC input.

Field Reference Tables

These tables reflect voxl-configurator 1.1.39. The tables printed on-target are always authoritative — voxl-print-family-table, voxl-print-board-table, print-camera-configs, print-modem-options, and print-extras-options are available in any shell on VOXL.

Family codes

Board codes

RC transmitter configs

Modem configs

Run print-modem-options on target for the authoritative list. Commonly used codes:

Four-digit codes combine an LTE modem with a VTX or VRX (for example 2026 = M0130 RC7611 + M0185 VTX).

Extras configs

Configure SKU

The voxl-configure-sku tool is the only supported way to change the SKU. It validates every field, constructs a correctly formatted SKU string, and writes it to /data/modalai/sku.txt.

Running voxl-configure-sku does nothing except update the sku.txt file on disk. To actually reconfigure the services on VOXL to match, run voxl-configure-mpa afterwards — it will read the new SKU and rebuild every service’s configuration from it.

Interactive: the wizard

For humans, use the wizard. It walks through each field with menus, suggesting the current SKU (if valid) and per-family defaults along the way:

voxl2:/$ voxl-configure-sku --wizard

The wizard asks, in order: product family, hardware version, camera config (ENTER accepts the family default; C selects a custom config), then — only for families where they apply — RC receiver, modem, and extra hardware. Before writing anything it previews the constructed SKU through voxl-inspect-sku so you can confirm every field parsed the way you intended.

Scripted: command-line arguments

For production lines and CI scripts, every field can be supplied as an argument. Only the family is required — the board code is derived from the family automatically, and other fields fall back to that family’s defaults:

voxl-configure-sku --family starling-2 -v 1        # Starling 2, defaults for the rest
voxl-configure-sku -f sentinel -v 2 -m 10          # Sentinel V2 with Microhard pMDDL2350
voxl-configure-sku -f MRB-D0008 -c 6 -t 8          # family by code, explicit cam + ELRS
voxl-configure-sku -f starling-2 -v 1 --dry-run    # validate and print, write nothing

Using the SKU in Your Own Scripts

All of the parsing and table logic used by these tools lives in one shell library, /home/root/.profile.d/modalai_sku_definitions.sh, which is sourced into every shell on VOXL. Your own scripts can use it directly:

source /home/root/.profile.d/modalai_sku_definitions.sh

voxl-parse-and-export-sku-variables $(cat /data/modalai/sku.txt)
echo "$VOXL_FAMILY_NAME on $VOXL_BOARD_NAME, camera config $VOXL_CAM_NUM"

After parsing, the fields are exported as environment variables: VOXL_FAMILY_CODE/VOXL_FAMILY_NAME, VOXL_BOARD_CODE/VOXL_BOARD_NAME, VOXL_HW_VERSION, VOXL_CAM_NUM, VOXL_MODEM_NUM/VOXL_MODEM_NAME, VOXL_TRANSMITTER_NUM/VOXL_TRANSMITTER_NAME, and VOXL_EXTRAS_CODE/VOXL_EXTRAS_NAME. This is exactly how voxl-configure-mpa consumes the SKU internally. For non-shell programs, parse the output of voxl-inspect-sku --json instead.

Source Code

The source code for all of the above — the tools and the definitions library — is in the voxl-configurator repository.