PCAN Operations Skill

A reusable Agent Skill for operating PEAK-System PCAN interfaces and PCANBasic-compatible hardware through the native PCANBasic API or python-can.

What it covers

• Channel discovery and capability inspection
• Classic CAN and ISO CAN-FD initialization
• Exact PCAN bit timing, including 500k/2M and 500k/12M examples
• Safe send/receive and payload validation
• PCAN status/error record classification
• Filters, listen-only mode, and timestamps
• Partial-initialization cleanup and bounded reopen retry
• Windows and WSL orchestration

Installation

Hermes Agent

Clone directly into your skill directory:

git clone https://github.com/InitusNovus/pcan-operations-skill.git   ~/.hermes/skills/embedded-hardware/pcan-operations

Start a new Hermes session so the skill loader discovers it.

Other Agent Skills-compatible tools

Clone or copy this repository into the tool's skill directory. SKILL.md is at the repository root.

Requirements

• Windows PCAN driver and PCANBasic installed from the hardware vendor
• Python 3.10+
• python-can when using the Python examples

py -m pip install python-can==4.6.1

The repository does not redistribute PCANBasic binaries or drivers.

Quick example

import can

bus = can.Bus(
    interface="pcan",
    channel="PCAN_USBBUS1",
    bitrate=500_000,
    auto_reset=False,
)
try:
    bus.send(can.Message(arbitration_id=0x123, data=b"PCAN", is_extended_id=False))
finally:
    bus.shutdown()

For production use, follow the ownership, status classification, cleanup, and canary rules in SKILL.md.

Related project

• pcan-validation-skill — automated functional, stress, timing, and recovery validation

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

PCAN is a trademark of PEAK-System Technik GmbH. This project is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by PEAK-System. Vendor drivers and SDK components remain subject to their respective licenses.