Building complex SoC images made simple with SoCks

Modern heterogeneous System-on-Chip (SoC) devices combine CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and AI accelerators into compact and energy-efficient platforms. However, the construction of bootable images for these systems remains complex because of fragmented tools, opaque dependencies, and inflexible workflows. SoCks (System-on-Chip blocks) introduces a lightweight and modular build framework that partitions an SoC image into encapsulated blocks, each built independently with standardized interfaces. This modularization simplifies development, encourages component reuse, enables distributed collaboration, and integrates seamlessly with modern Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. Within back-end development for the Phase-2 upgrade of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, SoCks has been used to build the bootable image for the Kria K26 System-on-Module (SoM) on the Serenity-S data processing board. The image utilizes an AlmaLinux-based operating system that employs a layered root file system, combining a read-only network-mounted lower layer with a writable local upper layer, to ensure consistency across boards. Furthermore, the Serenity-S image is optimized for a fully network-based boot process, allowing synchronized deployment across multiple Serenity-S boards and remote updates.