The Yocto Project team maintains complete source repositories for all Yocto Project files at http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi. This web-based source code browser is organized into categories by function such as IDE Plugins, Matchbox, Poky, Yocto Linux Kernel, and so forth. From the interface, you can click on any particular item in the "Name" column and see the URL at the bottom of the page that you need to clone a Git repository for that particular item. Having a local Git repository of the Source Directory (poky) allows you to make changes, contribute to the history, and ultimately enhance the Yocto Project's tools, Board Support Packages, and so forth.
Conversely, if you are a developer that is not interested in contributing back to the Yocto Project, you have the ability to simply download and extract release tarballs and use them within the Yocto Project environment. All that is required is a particular release of the Yocto Project and your application source code.
For any supported release of Yocto Project, you can go to the Yocto Project Website and select the "Downloads" tab and get a tarball of the release. You can also go to this site to download any supported BSP tarballs. Unpacking the tarball gives you a hierarchical Source Directory that lets you develop using the Yocto Project.
Once you are set up through either tarball extraction or a checkout of Git repositories, you are ready to develop.
In summary, here is where you can get the project files needed for development:
Source Repositories: This area contains IDE Plugins, Matchbox, Poky, Poky Support, Tools, Yocto Linux Kernel, and Yocto Metadata Layers. You can create local copies of Git repositories for each of these areas.
![]() |
Index of /releases: This area contains index releases such as the Eclipse™ Yocto Plug-in, miscellaneous support, poky, pseudo, installers for cross-development toolchains, and all released versions of Yocto Project in the form of images or tarballs. Downloading and extracting these files does not produce a local copy of the Git repository but rather a snapshot of a particular release or image.
![]() |
"Downloads" page for the Yocto Project Website: Access this page by going to the website and then selecting the "Downloads" tab. This page allows you to download any Yocto Project release or Board Support Package (BSP) in tarball form. The tarballs are similar to those found in the Index of /releases: area.
![]() |