Dronecode Foundation

aid: dronecode
name: Dronecode Foundation
description: 'The Dronecode Foundation is a vendor-neutral Linux Foundation collaborative project and the home of the open
  source flight stack the drone industry runs on: PX4 Autopilot, the MAVLink communication protocol, MAVSDK, QGroundControl
  and the Pixhawk hardware standards. Its machine-readable surface is a gRPC one — MAVSDK-Proto publishes 38 protobuf services
  and 387 RPCs covering arming, takeoff, missions, geofencing, telemetry, camera, gimbal and parameter control — alongside
  the MAVLink dialect XML and the component-metadata JSON Schemas that define how vehicles describe themselves. Nothing is
  hosted: the consumer runs mavsdk_server themselves, and every contract, SDK and firmware is free and open source.'
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  license_evidence:
    not_product:
    - mavlink/mavlink
    - mavlink/mavsdk
    - mavlink/mavsdk-proto
    - px4/px4-autopilot
  open_source: unknown
  commercial: true
  callable_host: false
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: low
  source:
  - pricing
  - repository-not-product
  generated: '2026-09-25'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: self-service
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: true
  label: Free and open source · no account, no key, no quota
  confidence: high
  source:
  - plans
  - license
  generated: '2026-09-06'
  method: searched
position: Producing
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/dronecode.png
tags:
- Drones
- UAV
- Robotics
- MAVLink
- PX4
- Autopilot
- Aerial Robotics
- gRPC
- Open Source
- Linux Foundation
tags_raw:
- Drones
- UAV
- Robotics
- MAVLink
- PX4
- Autopilot
- Aerial Robotics
- gRPC
- Open Source
- Linux Foundation
- Open-Source
created: '2026-03-16'
modified: '2026-09-06'
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/dronecode/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
specificationVersion: '0.23'
x-baseurl-note: 'Three API entries carry no baseURL on purpose. PX4 Autopilot and MAVLink are firmware and a wire protocol;
  neither terminates a network endpoint, so there is no host to name and none was guessed. MAVSDK has no baseURL for a different
  reason: its endpoint is grpc://{host}:50051 on a machine the consumer runs themselves, and apis.json requires an http/https
  base, so recording one would either fail the schema or misdescribe the transport. The real base is stated in grpc/_index.yml.'
x-contract-note: Contract discovery 2026-09-06. No OpenAPI, Swagger, GraphQL, AsyncAPI or WSDL exists anywhere in this estate,
  and probing for one is the wrong search — Dronecode's contract is gRPC. 39 .proto files were fetched verbatim from github.com/mavlink/MAVSDK-Proto
  @ 4fbf5ce1 (38 services, 387 RPCs, 983 messages, 63 of them server-streaming) plus 5 MAVLink component-metadata JSON Schemas
  whose $id resolves to mavlink.io. A prior round recorded this provider as publishing no contract at all.
apis:
- aid: dronecode:dronecode-api
  name: PX4 Autopilot
  description: PX4 is the open source flight control firmware the Dronecode Foundation stewards — the software running on
    the vehicle that MAVLink and MAVSDK talk to. It exposes no network API of its own; its programmable surface is the MAVLink
    link, reached through MAVSDK or a ground station.
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/dronecode.png
  humanURL: https://docs.px4.io/
  tags:
  - Drones
  - UAV
  - Autopilot
  - PX4
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.px4.io/
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://docs.px4.io/main/en/index.html
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/PX4/PX4-Autopilot
  - type: ReleaseNotes
    url: https://docs.px4.io/main/en/releases/
  - type: Sandbox
    url: sandbox/dronecode-sandbox.yml
- aid: dronecode:mavsdk
  name: MAVSDK gRPC API
  description: MAVSDK is the Dronecode Foundation's programmable interface to any MAVLink vehicle, and the only surface in
    the estate with a full machine-readable contract. 38 protobuf services and 387 RPCs cover arming and flight control, missions,
    geofencing, offboard setpoints, camera and gimbal, parameters, FTP, logs, failure injection and 59 telemetry subscriptions.
    It is delivered as mavsdk_server, a binary the consumer runs on their own machine or companion computer — there is no
    Dronecode-hosted endpoint, no authentication and no key.
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/dronecode.png
  humanURL: https://mavsdk.mavlink.io/main/en/
  tags:
  - Drones
  - UAV
  - gRPC
  - Robotics
  properties:
  - type: Protobuf
    url: grpc/_index.yml
  - type: Protobuf
    url: grpc/dronecode-mavsdk-action.proto
  - type: Protobuf
    url: grpc/dronecode-mavsdk-mission.proto
  - type: Protobuf
    url: grpc/dronecode-mavsdk-telemetry.proto
  - type: ErrorCatalog
    url: errors/dronecode-problem-types.yml
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://mavsdk.mavlink.io/main/en/cpp/api_reference/index.html
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://mavsdk.mavlink.io/main/en/
  - type: Quickstart
    url: https://mavsdk.mavlink.io/main/en/python/quickstart.html
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/mavlink/MAVSDK
  - type: SourceCode
    url: https://github.com/mavlink/MAVSDK-Proto
- aid: dronecode:mavlink
  name: MAVLink Protocol
  description: MAVLink is the message-level interoperability standard for drones, and the Dronecode Foundation publishes it.
    The contract is the dialect XML — 19 files including common.xml, standard.xml, minimal.xml and development.xml — from
    which every language binding is generated, plus five JSON Schemas defining how a component describes its own parameters,
    actuators and peripherals. The dialect XML carries a machine-readable deprecation element with `since` and `replaced_by`.
  image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/dronecode.png
  humanURL: https://mavlink.io/en/
  tags:
  - Drones
  - UAV
  - MAVLink
  - Standards
  properties:
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://mavlink.io/en/messages/common.html
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://mavlink.io/en/
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/dronecode-mavlink-component-metadata-general.schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/dronecode-mavlink-component-metadata-parameter.schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/dronecode-mavlink-component-metadata-actuators.schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/dronecode-mavlink-component-metadata-peripherals.schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/dronecode-mavlink-component-metadata-translation.schema.json
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/mavlink/mavlink
- aid: dronecode:dronecode-org-website-wordpress-rest
  name: Dronecode Foundation Website (WordPress REST)
  description: 'The public WordPress REST API (wp-json) of the Dronecode Foundation website at dronecode.org: the route index
    of the site''s content management system, catalogued as one site surface rather than as separate APIs.'
  baseURL: https://dronecode.org/wp-json
  tags:
  - WordPress
  x-surface: platform-generated
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://dronecode.org/wp-json
  x-platform: wordpress
  x-platform-surface: rest
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://www.dronecode.org/
- type: DeveloperPortal
  name: Dronecode Projects
  description: The Foundation's index of the five projects it hosts — PX4, Pixhawk, MAVLink, QGroundControl, MAVSDK.
  url: https://dronecode.org/projects/
- type: Documentation
  name: PX4 User and Developer Guide
  description: Official documentation for the PX4 Autopilot flight stack.
  url: https://docs.px4.io/
- type: APIReference
  name: MAVSDK API Reference
  description: Generated reference for the MAVSDK gRPC services.
  url: https://mavsdk.mavlink.io/main/en/cpp/api_reference/index.html
- type: Quickstart
  name: MAVSDK Python Quickstart
  url: https://mavsdk.mavlink.io/main/en/python/quickstart.html
- type: Support
  name: Dronecode Forum
  description: The community support forum for PX4, MAVSDK and MAVLink.
  url: https://discuss.px4.io/
- type: Community
  name: Dronecode mailing lists
  url: https://lists.dronecode.org/groups
- type: Blog
  url: https://dronecode.org/feed/
- type: GitHubOrg
  name: Dronecode Foundation GitHub
  description: The Foundation's own organisation. The project code lives under github.com/PX4 and github.com/mavlink.
  url: https://github.com/Dronecode
- type: GitHubOrganization
  name: MAVLink / MAVSDK / QGroundControl GitHub
  url: https://github.com/mavlink
- type: GitHubRepository
  name: PX4 GitHub organisation
  url: https://github.com/PX4
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dronecode-foundation
- type: Pricing
  name: Dronecode membership
  description: Foundation membership dues, not API pricing. The APIs are free and require no account — see plans/dronecode-plans-pricing.yml.
  url: https://dronecode.org/membership/
- type: SignUp
  name: Dronecode Forum signup
  url: https://discuss.px4.io/signup
- type: TermsOfUse
  url: https://dronecode.org/terms-of-use/
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://dronecode.org/privacy-policy/
- type: Plans
  url: plans/dronecode-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/dronecode-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/dronecode-finops.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/dronecode-domain-security.yml
- type: VulnerabilityDisclosure
  url: security/dronecode-vulnerability-disclosure.yml
- type: Security
  name: PX4 security policy
  description: Coordinated disclosure through GitHub Security Advisories with a 7-day acknowledgement commitment, supported-version
    table, and an explicit AI-assisted-discovery clause.
  url: security/dronecode-vulnerability-disclosure.yml
- type: Packages
  url: packages/dronecode-packages.yml
- type: SDKs
  name: First-party MAVSDK clients
  description: Python, Java, Go, Swift and Rust clients published from the mavlink GitHub organisation.
  url: packages/dronecode-packages.yml
- type: Protobuf
  name: MAVSDK protobuf contract
  description: 38 services, 387 RPCs — saved verbatim from github.com/mavlink/MAVSDK-Proto.
  url: grpc/_index.yml
- type: ErrorCatalog
  url: errors/dronecode-problem-types.yml
- type: DataModel
  url: data-model/dronecode-data-model.yml
- type: Conventions
  url: conventions/dronecode-conventions.yml
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/dronecode-conformance.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/dronecode-authentication.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/dronecode-lifecycle.yml
- type: Deprecation
  name: MAVLink deprecation mechanism
  description: The dialect XML carries <deprecated since="YYYY-MM" replaced_by="..."/> per message, enum and entry — a machine-readable
    deprecation signal on the standard itself.
  url: lifecycle/dronecode-lifecycle.yml
- type: ChangeLog
  url: changelog/dronecode-changelog.yml
- type: Sandbox
  name: PX4 SITL
  description: Software-in-the-loop simulation running identical firmware against the identical contract.
  url: sandbox/dronecode-sandbox.yml
- type: MCPServer
  name: MCP candidate (no server published)
  description: Derived candidate tool list. Dronecode publishes no MCP server — deployment.mode is none.
  url: mcp/dronecode-mcp.yml
- type: AgentSkill
  url: skills/_index.yml
- type: LLMsTxt
  name: dronecode.org llms.txt
  description: Provider-published and saved verbatim. Covers announcements and marketing pages only — it names none of the
    Foundation's technical surfaces.
  url: llms/dronecode-llms.txt
- type: WellKnown
  url: well-known/dronecode-well-known.yml
- type: APICatalog
  name: RFC 9727 api-catalog
  description: Served at https://dronecode.org/.well-known/api-catalog (HTTP 200, application/linkset+json).
  url: well-known/dronecode-api-catalog.json
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: info@apievangelist.com
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-09-06'
  status: enriched
  artifacts_added: 63
  pass: local-v3