micro-ROS / micro-ROS/micro-ROS-Agent

Subscriptions silently drop when agent branch doesn't match client distro — undocumented

Open Beginner friendly
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Dominant language
C++
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Description

Hi,
Spent a while chasing a bug that turned out to be agent ↔ client version mismatch.

- Hardware description: STM32G491 (Cortex-M4), custom board, serial UART transport
- RTOS: Zephyr 4.1.x
- Installation type: modules (`micro_ros_zephyr_module`, jazzy branch)
- Version or commit hash: client on `jazzy` branch; agent `6.0.0`

#### Steps to reproduce the issue

1. Build a Zephyr firmware client from the `jazzy` branch of `micro_ros_zephyr_module`. Add at least one publisher and one subscription on the same node.
2. Run micro_ros_agent 6.0.0 (built from source) with serial transport, pointed at the firmware.
3. From host (ROS 2 jazzy), `ros2 topic echo ` — works, data is visible.
4. From host, `ros2 topic pub ...`. Subscription callback never fires on the firmware. Agent log at `-v6` shows DATA submessages being forwarded toward the client.
5. Stop everything. `git clone` `micro-ROS-Agent`, `git checkout jazzy`, build from source, restart with the same args.
6. Subscription callback fires correctly on the first try.

#### Expected behavior

Either:
- Tagged agent releases interoperate with any matching client, **or**
- A loud error / log line at session-establish when agent and client XRCE protocol versions don't line up.

#### Actual behavior

Subscription messages are silently dropped on the way to the client. No error, no warning, no log line at any verbosity. Publishers in the same direction work fine, so it looks superficially like a working session.

#### Additional information

The README doesn't mention that the agent branch has to match the client's ROS distro at runtime. Two asks:

1. **Docs:** add a compatibility note to the README — the agent must be built from the branch matching the client's distro (`humble`, `jazzy`, `rolling`). Happy to PR this.
2. **Optional:** at session-establish, log both the agent's and the client's claimed XRCE protocol version so a mismatch is loud rather than silent.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start with the repository README and review its agent/client version guidance, using the reported humble, jazzy, and rolling branches as the compatibility cases. Add a clear note that the agent branch must match the client's ROS distro; the documentation work is done when this requirement and the silent-failure risk are unambiguous. No test is named in the issue.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
1/5
Estimated time
Under an hour
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
68/100

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