flowchem-virtual 1.0.0

Flowchem-Virtual is a virtual version of the flowchem - library to control instruments and devices commonly found in chemistry labs via an interoperable web API.

flowchem-virtual

flowchem-virtual provides virtual devices (digital twins) for the hardware implemented in the main flowchem package.

It’s designed as a drop-in replacement for flowchem when you want to:

• Develop and debug flows

• Test configuration files

• Run CI pipelines

…without having the physical hardware connected.

Installation

pip install flowchem-virtual

Usage

If you already know how flowchem works, using flowchem-virtual is straightforward.

Normally, you would start a flowchem server with:

flowchem /path/to/configuration_file.toml

To use the virtual devices instead, simply run:

flowchem-virtual /path/to/configuration_file.toml

flowchem-virtual will:

• Read the same configuration file

• Expose virtual counterparts of all devices defined there

• Keep the same API and behavior as much as possible, but without touching real hardware

This makes it a convenient simulation layer for your existing setups.

When should I use flowchem-virtual?

Typical scenarios:

• 💻 Local development of client code without access to the lab

• 🧪 Unit tests / CI where hardware is not available (or not desirable)

• 📦 Trying out configuration changes before deploying them to a real setup

• 📚 Teaching and demos of flowchem-based automation

Tips

If you are not yet familiar with flowchem, it’s highly recommended to learn the basics there first.

👉 flowchem documentation

Once you understand how devices and configuration files work in flowchem, switching to the virtual version is just a matter of changing the command from:

flowchem ...

to:

flowchem-virtual ...

Limitations

• Virtual devices do not control real hardware (obviously 😄).

• Most part of device-specific behavior (e.g. exact timing, error states) may be simplified.

• If your code depends on very low-level hardware quirks, the virtual version might not reproduce them perfectly.

Contributing

Pull requests, bug reports and feature requests are welcome!

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License – see the LICENSE file for details.