Allow disabling Limelight proxy

[monkbroc]

Issue

Our team uses Pedro Pathing for autonomous navigation, and that library has a hard dependency on Panels for tuning its constants. However, our students prefer using FTC Dashboard for graphs, logs and tuning (thanks for making a nice and simple to use dashboard library!).

When the students updated FTC dashboard from 0.5.1 to 0.6.0, the robot app started crashing.

Root cause

FTC Dashboard 0.6.0 includes the Limelight proxy from #215.

Panels also includes a Limelight proxy that binds the same ports. When using both libraries, there's currently no way to stop FTC Dashboard from starting the proxy and when Panels starts, the Control Hub crashes due to both libraries trying to bind the port. Note that the crash happens whether or not there's a Limelight connected, as it's starting the proxy that causes the issue.

Steps to reproduce

Modify build.dependencies.gradle to include

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
    google() // Needed for androidx
    maven { url = 'https://maven.brott.dev/' }
    maven { url = 'https://mymaven.bylazar.com/releases' }
}

dependencies {
    implementation 'org.firstinspires.ftc:Inspection:12.0.0'
    implementation 'org.firstinspires.ftc:Blocks:12.0.0'
    implementation 'org.firstinspires.ftc:RobotCore:12.0.0'
    implementation 'org.firstinspires.ftc:RobotServer:12.0.0'
    implementation 'org.firstinspires.ftc:OnBotJava:12.0.0'
    implementation 'org.firstinspires.ftc:Hardware:12.0.0'
    implementation 'org.firstinspires.ftc:FtcCommon:12.0.0'
    implementation 'org.firstinspires.ftc:Vision:12.0.0'
    implementation 'androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.2.0'
    implementation 'com.acmerobotics.dashboard:dashboard:0.6.0'
    implementation 'com.bylazar:fullpanels:1.0.7'
}

Deploy to robot and see the app crash on start.

Change

Add the annotation @DashboardSettings with one setting for disabling Limelight proxy. This annotation can be added to any class and will be picked up by the same scan that looks for the @Config annotation. If more settings are needed in the future, they can be added to the same annotation.

Example usage

@DashboardSettings(limelightProxy = false)
public class RobotConstants {
    // ...
}

[Copilot]

🟡 Changes recommended

The new static limelightProxyEnabled flag is not reset between dashboard restarts within the same process, which can incorrectly keep the proxy disabled.

Get a fresh assessment by requesting another Copilot review.

Pull request overview

Adds a build-time opt-out for FTC Dashboard’s Limelight proxy so teams can use other libraries (e.g., Panels) that bind the same ports without crashing the robot app.

Changes:

• Introduces @DashboardSettings with a limelightProxy toggle (default enabled).
• Extends the existing dex scan to detect @DashboardSettings and conditionally skip starting the Limelight proxy.

File summaries

File	Description
FtcDashboard/src/main/java/com/acmerobotics/dashboard/FtcDashboard.java	Reads @DashboardSettings during class scanning and gates LimelightProxyManager.start() based on the setting.
FtcDashboard/src/main/java/com/acmerobotics/dashboard/DashboardSettings.java	Adds a runtime annotation to allow disabling the Limelight proxy at startup.

Review details

• Files reviewed: 2/2 changed files
• Comments generated: 1
• Review effort level: Lite

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