Hands-on with Raspberry Pi's CM5 Programming Jig

Jeff Geerling tested Raspberry Pi's CM5 Programming Jig, a tool designed to simplify flashing Raspberry Pi OS to multiple Compute Module 5 units, addressing the tedious process of plugging modules into carrier boards and managing imaging software for clusters of four or more Pis.

In the before-times, when Raspberry Pi CM5s were relatively affordable, I built a number of Pi clusters example https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/i-regret-building-3000-pi-ai-cluster/ , and one of the most annoying parts of the build was flashing Raspberry Pi OS to all the Pis. One, two, or even three Pis isn't a big deal, but once you hit 4+, the process of plugging the Compute Module into a carrier board, plugging that into a computer, managing Raspberry Pi Imager, and trying to match up details like a hostname, MAC address, and the physical Pi itself, gets annoying.