Try it in your browser → A simulated controller and its live diagram, no install. Datasheet (PDF), one page.

Helmsman Factory Automation

The soft PLC you program by describing the machine. The agent writes standard IEC 61131-3 Structured Text from your spec, you check it on a live diagram, and an engineer approves it before it runs. Early release.

• Robust: a minimal set of dependencies; every change passes more than 1,300 automated tests and interoperability tests in CI.
• Simple: one controller, one service, its own web screen. No cloud needed to run the machine, no database server, no microservices.
• Safe: a memory-safe language, engineer approval for every change, an audit trail, and safeguards that stay out of your way.
• Reliable: compiled, native performance on a fixed scan; a watchdog bounds every scan, and a faulted program stops alone with outputs safe.

A pure soft PLC: field I/O lives in junction boxes and remote I/O modules (such as the Moxa ioLogik) on industrial Ethernet. It speaks EtherNet/IP (CIP) and Modbus TCP, and imports PLCopen XML.

Try it in your browser: https://helmsman.advin.io/playground/ writes and runs Structured Text against a simulated controller, with its live diagram; no install.

For developers

docs/ARCHITECTURE.md is the map of the code, docs/UI.md the shape of the app, TODO.md the plan. A Rust cargo workspace, crates under crates/helmsman-*: helmsman-proto (CIP originator: discovery, explicit messaging, the Class 1 scanner), helmsman-adapter (CIP target), helmsman-iec (ST compiler and interpreter, PLCopen XML), helmsman-io (I/O map, drivers, Modbus TCP), helmsman-project (a project's files and archive), helmsman-plc (the runtime), helmsman-diagram (ST as a live diagram), helmsman-agent (the chat panel's agent loop), helmsman-canvas (the browser app). make help lists the dev targets. docs/SOURCES.md reviews the reference stacks and ODVA documents this project draws on. Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (LICENSE, NOTICE); LICENSING.md says which parts of the wider project (the relay, the marketplace, the device library) are under other terms.