Hi @flo, yeah, the debugging angle is exactly what pushed us to build ros2_medkit. Once you have PLCs, HMIs, and safety sensors in the mix alongside ROS 2, ros2 topic echo and scattered logs just stop scaling.
What we did was model the robot as a structured entity tree (Area / Component / Function / App) and expose everything over a SOVD-aligned REST API: live topic data, service/action calls, parameter management, fault history. SOVD felt like the right anchor because it’s the same model the rest of the vehicle/machine stack already speaks, so your diagnostics tooling doesn’t need to know it’s talking to ROS 2 under the hood.
For fault management we took the AUTOSAR DEM approach: debounce, two-level filtering, SQLite persistence, SSE for real-time updates. There’s also an MCP server wrapping the gateway for AI tooling, with a plugin system via Python entry_points so teams can bolt on their own diagnostic logic without touching the core. We’ve been using that for fault correlation in CI.
Honest gaps: shipping and fleet-scale updates are on the roadmap, not in yet. Fleet health beyond “query a single robot’s REST API” is still something we’re working through.
Would definitely be up for a working group. This space is too fragmented to solve alone.
@chfritz, thanks for the mention. Few clarifications though, I think you’re comparing different layers here:
“works from anywhere, no VPN” is a deployment topology decision, not a capability gap. The ros2_medkit_gateway exposes a REST API with built-in JWT RBAC. Where you expose it is up to you.
“shows health history” is there. Fault history persisted in SQLite with full lifecycle tracking. For raw timeseries you bring your own backend, we intentionally don’t prescribe the monitoring stack.
“programmatic access” is literally the whole point. SOVD-compliant REST API plus MCP tools for LLMs.
Honestly Transitive looks more complementary than competing. Cloud-centric fleet management + OTA on one side, edge-native diagnostic gateway on the other. Different layers of the same problem.