Software Templates for Research software

Research software templates that implement the best practices on sustainable software for researchers in Natural and Engineering Science. These templates provide boilerplate code and assets to initiate the research software development, including unit tests, documentation, etc.

How to Use

Requirements

• Python 3.11 or higher
• Copier

Creating a software project

copier copy https://github.com/SS-NES/Software-Templates.git <path/to/project-directory>

Of after clonning the repository, use a full path to Software-Templates/:

copier copy ~/<local-path>/Software-Templates <path/to/project-directory>

Updating an existing software project

Update the generated project by changing your answers. At the root of the software project, do:

copier update

IMPORTANT: Before you are allow to update a project, the sofware project must be initialized as a Git repository, all files must be commited, and the status of the repository must show it is clean, i.e., no pending changes to commit.

Creating a software project from an SMP

Given data from an SMP is provided as a YAML like:

software_name:  Demo
release_date: June 4, 2024
smp_version:  0.1.0
authors:  [Jane Doe](mailto:doe.j@example.nl)
purpose:  An example
research_project_context: software templates
ownership:  Institution
version_control:  git
public: True
reuse: False
repository: https://github.com
software_license: Apache-2.0 (Apache License 2.0)
citation: citation.cff
user_documentation: user.md
deployment_documentation: deploy.yml
testing:  testing.yml
quality:  Quality
packaging:  PyPI
maintenance:  maintenance.md
sustainability: sustainable.md
support:  support.md
risk_analysis:  No risk
data_management_plan: DMP

A smp.yml file can be passed to copier when rendering the template.

copier copy --data-file </path/to/smp.yml> ~/<local-path>/Software-Templates <path/to/project-directory>

Acknowledgements

• This template was inspired by Serious Scaffold Python