Trying to include esphomelib with simple main (esp32) app

I get stumped on the following: trying to compile/link my own “Reader” (Esp32 board) that uses some libraries from Github (i.e. esphomelib). I would like to be able to debug both my own as well as the esphomelib, but cannot even get the code to compile/link without debug enabled. I read the docs, attempted “include_dir”, “lib_dir” and other variants but to no avail.

Anyone that can give me a push in the right direction?

I (poorly) tried to list my simplified folder structure below.

D:\Github
       |
       + Reader
       |     | main.cpp
       |     | main.h
       |
       + esphomelib
       |     | platform.io
       |     |
       |     + src
       |     |   | esphomelib.h
       |     |   + esphomelib
       |     |   |      |   <files> and <folders>

If someone can point me in the direction of a platformio.ini file then that would be great!

[Update Jan 9] I’m new in this IoT area and have been part of large software projects. In that area we had applications built up from many libraries. A typical approach to develop (and sometimes learn the intricacies of certain libraries) is to link them in and step through/review the code that way. Maybe that is just not a reasonable way to do this with PlatformIO?