Developer Documentation

Local Environment

For purposes of development, create conda environment usansred with file environment.yml, and then install the package in development mode with pip:

$> cd cd /path/to/usansred/
$> conda create env --solver libmamba --file ./environment.yml
$> conda activate usansred
(usansred)$> pip install -e ./

By installing the package in development mode, one doesn’t need to re-install package usanred in conda environment usansred after every change to the source code.

pre-commit Hooks

Development procedure

  1. A developer is assigned with a task during neutron status meeting and changes the task’s status to In Progress.

  2. The developer creates a branch off next and completes the task in this branch.

  3. The developer creates a pull request (PR) off next.

  4. Any new features or bugfixes must be covered by new and/or refactored automated tests.

  5. The developer asks for another developer as a reviewer to review the PR. A PR can only be approved and merged by the reviewer.

  6. The developer changes the task’s status to Complete and closes the associated issue.

Updating mantid dependency

The mantid version and the mantid conda channel (mantid/label/main or mantid/label/nightly) must be synchronized across these files:

  • environment.yml

  • conda.recipe/meta.yml

  • .github/workflows/package.yml

Using the Data Repository usansred-data

To run the integration tests in your local environment, it is necessary first to download the data files. Because of their size, the files are stored in the Git LFS repository usansred-data.

It is necessary to have package git-lfs installed in your machine.

$> sudo apt install git-lfs

After this step, initialize or update the data repository:

$> cd /path/to/usanred
$> git submodule update --init

This will either clone usansred-data into /path/to/usanred/tests/usansred-data or bring the usansred-data’s refspec in sync with the refspec listed within file /path/to/usanred/.gitmodules.

An intro to Git LFS in the context of the Neutron Data Project is found in the Confluence pages (login required).

Coverage reports

GitHuh actions create reports for unit and integration tests, then combine into one report and upload it to Codecov.

Building the documentation

A repository webhook is setup to automatically trigger the latest documentation build by GitHub actions. To manually build the documentation:

$> conda activate usansred
(usansred)$> cd /path/to/usansred/docs
(usansred)$> make docs

After this, point your browser to file:///path/to/usansred/docs/build/html/index.html

Creating a stable release

  • Follow the Software Maturity Model for continous versioning as well as creating release candidates and stable releases.

  • Update the Release Notes with major fixes, updates and additions since last stable release.