BehaviorTree.CPP 4.9

This C++ 17 library provides a framework to create BehaviorTrees. It was designed to be flexible, easy to use, reactive and fast.

Even if our main use-case is robotics, you can use this library to build AI for games, or to replace Finite State Machines.

There are a few features that make BehaviorTree.CPP unique, when compared to other implementations:

• It makes asynchronous Actions, i.e. non-blocking, a first-class citizen.

• You can build reactive behaviors that execute multiple Actions concurrently (orthogonality).

• Trees are defined using a Domain Specific scripting language (based on XML), and can be loaded at run-time; in other words, even if written in C++, the morphology of the Trees is not hard-coded.

• You can statically link your custom TreeNodes or convert them into plugins and load them at run-time.

• It provides a type-safe and flexible mechanism to do Dataflow between Nodes of the Tree.

• It includes a logging/profiling infrastructure that allows the user to visualize, record, replay, and analyze state transitions.

Documentation

• Tutorials and general documentation: https://www.behaviortree.dev/
• Auto-generated Doxygen: https://behaviortree.github.io/BehaviorTree.CPP/
• Community support and forum: https://github.com/BehaviorTree/BehaviorTree.CPP/discussions

GUI Editor

Editing a BehaviorTree is as simple as editing an XML file in your favorite text editor.

If you are looking for a fancier graphical user interface (and I know you do) check Groot2 out.

How to compile

BT.CPP requires a compiler that supports C++17.

Three build systems are supported:

• colcon (ament), if you use ROS2
• conan otherwise (Linux/Windows).
• straight cmake if you want to be personally responsible for dependencies :)

Compiling with conan:

[!NOTE] Conan builds require CMake 3.23 or newer.

Assuming that you are in the root directory of BehaviorTree.CPP:

conan install . -s build_type=Release --build=missing
cmake --preset conan-release
cmake --build --preset conan-release

If you have dependencies such as ZeroMQ and SQlite already installed and you don’t want to use conan, simply type:

mkdir build_release
cmake -S . -B build_release
cmake --build build_release --parallel

If you want to build in a pixi project (conda virtual environment).

pixi run build

If you want to use BT.CPP in your application, please refer to the example here: https://github.com/BehaviorTree/btcpp_sample .

Installing BehaviorTree.CPP (vcpkg)

Alternatively, you can build and install behaviortree-cpp using vcpkg dependency manager:

git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg
./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh
./vcpkg integrate install
./vcpkg install behaviortree-cpp

The behaviortree-cpp port in vcpkg is kept up to date by Microsoft team members and community contributors. If the version is out of date, please create an issue or pull request on the vcpkg repository.

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Changelog for package behaviortree_cpp

4.9.0 (2026-02-11)

• Fix Blackboard thread-safety: 6 data races fixed, use shared_mutex for storage
• Fix XML parser null pointer dereference in loadSubtreeModel on missing SubTree ID
• Add TryCatch control node for try/catch recovery patterns
• Fix #1111: EntryUpdatedDecorator::halt() not halting its child (#1112)
• Add polymorphic shared_ptr port support (#943) (#1107)
• Fix [std::from_chars]{.title-ref} compilation on older g++ versions (#1110)
• Fix clang-tidy warnings across tests, examples, and samples (#1109)
• Add exception tracking with node backtrace (#990) (#1106)
• Fix #861
• Fix #917: add comments about preconditions
• Fix missing read_parameter_from_ports initialization in DelayNode (#1103)
• Fix #880: createTreeFromText now finds previously registered subtrees (#1105)
• Remove lexy dependency, replace with hand-written tokenizer and Pratt parser (#1099)
• Fix #953: getInput() now uses stored converter for plugin custom types (#1104)
• Improve test suite quality and coverage (#1102)
• Fix Groot2Publisher destructor infinite loop (#1057) (#1100)
• Fix misleading static_assert when extra args have wrong type (#837) (#1098)
• Fix DelayNode ignoring delay_msec when created from XML (#1097)
• Fix Windows build issues (#762, #869, #836) (#1089)
• Fix #989: JsonExporter use-after-move in vector converter registration (#1090)
• Fix #672: reject deeply-nested/recursive XML to prevent stack overflow (#1091)
• Fix #930: mock substitution hangs when TestNodeConfigs is absent (#1086)
• Detect recursive subtree cycles at parse time (#979) (#1085)
• Fix #1046: use-after-free when factory destroyed before tree (#1081)
• Fix #934: segfault when substituting a SubTree node (#1083)
• Fix #937: enable returning BehaviorTreeFactory by value (#1082)
• Add vcpkg installation instructions (#421)
• Fix #942: getLockedPortContent creates entry for default-remapped ports (#1078)
• Add code coverage CI with Codecov, Coveralls, Codacy, and SonarCloud (#1068)
• Fix Groot2Publisher destructor infinite loop (#1058)
• Remove deprecated [std::aligned_storage]{.title-ref} (#1061)
• Add regression test for #1065: subtree string literal to LoopDouble (#1072)
• Add regression test for

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