Syndex

Syndex is the data index for the Synthesizer project: a searchable catalogue of stellar population synthesis and AGN grids, dust models, instruments and simulation data, and a stable service for downloading them.

Browse it at synthesizer-project.org/syndex.

This package is the tooling that goes with it. You do not need it to download data — Synthesizer does that with synthesizer-download — you need it to contribute data: to check a file against what the catalogue requires before submitting it, and to send large files from a machine that has no browser.

Installation

pip install cosmos-syndex

It needs Python 3.10 or later, and nothing but h5py and numpy.

To install an unreleased change, point pip at the repository instead:

pip install 'git+https://github.com/synthesizer-project/syndex.git'

Getting data

You do not need this package for that. Browse the catalogue, then download with Synthesizer:

synthesizer-download --dataset bpass-2p2p1-bin-chabrier03-0p1-300p0

Everything the portal shows is also available as JSON from https://data.synthesizer-project.org, described in docs/api.md.

Contributing data

Submissions go through the portal, which needs a GitHub account and a maintainer to grant you access. Describe the dataset, then send the file.

Check it first

Every submission is put through the same checker automatically. Running it yourself first means finding a missing attribute in a second rather than after sending 30 GB:

syndex-check my-grid.hdf5

It reports what the file is, what was read out of it, and anything that would stop it being published — a grid that does not say what kind of grid it is, an axis named in the singular, a Cloudy version disagreeing with the filename. --json gives the same thing for a machine to read.

Send a large file

The browser handles anything up to 10 GB. Above that, or on a machine you reach over SSH, use the token from the submission's page:

syndex-submit 6630a2d3da236ed83f246c1040fdcd06 my-grid.hdf5

It signs in through GitHub's device flow the first time, sends the file in pieces, and resumes where it stopped if it is interrupted.

Development

See docs/development.md for running the service locally, the test suites, and how the pieces fit together.

Licence

GNU General Public License v3.0.