Developer Install

This page covers setting up a development environment. If you only want to use TABASCAL, follow the installation instructions in the usage guide instead.

pixi (recommended for development)

pixi is the recommended way to develop TABASCAL. It manages both conda and PyPI dependencies and creates isolated environments automatically, so it resolves python-casacore for you rather than leaving it as a manual conda step.

Install pixi

curl -fsSL https://pixi.sh/install.sh | sh

Available environments

Environment	Platform	Description
`default`	linux-, macos-	CPU-only runtime environment
`dev`	linux-, macos-	CPU + testing and documentation tools
`cuda12`	linux-*	NVIDIA GPU (CUDA 12) runtime
`cuda12-dev`	linux-*	NVIDIA GPU + testing and docs

Install an environment

git clone git@github.com:epfl-radio-astro/tabascal.git
cd tabascal

# CPU (default)
pixi install

# Development (includes pytest, sphinx, etc.)
pixi install -e dev

# NVIDIA GPU
pixi install -e cuda12

Open a shell in the environment

pixi shell          # default environment
pixi shell -e dev   # dev environment

Editable install without pixi

An editable install into an existing environment also works. Provide python-casacore first, as described in the usage guide:

git clone git@github.com:epfl-radio-astro/tabascal.git
pip install -e ./tabascal[dev]

The dev extra pulls in the test and docs extras along with pre-commit and reframe-hpc.

Running tests

pixi run -e dev test               # all tests
pixi run -e dev test-components    # component tests only

To run a single file or test, open a dev shell first:

pixi shell -e dev
pytest tests/components/test_gains.py
pytest tests/components/test_gains.py::TestUnitaryGains::test_forward_vis_obs_equals_sum

SGP4 component tests use a bundled TLE cache (tabascal/data/tles/) and run without Space-Track credentials.

The end-to-end pipeline tests, which compare inference results against recorded reference values, are described in Pipeline tests.

Building the documentation

pixi run -e dev docs-build

After building, open docs/_build/html/index.html in a browser.

Without pixi, run sphinx-build directly from the base directory of the repository:

sphinx-build -b html docs docs/_build/html

The documentation is also published on Read the Docs, one version per release tag plus latest from main, selectable from the version flyout on every page. Read the Docs setup covers the version scheme, how to publish a release or an extra branch, and the warnings-as-errors build that CI and Read the Docs both run.