howfairis 0.14.1

Python package to analyze compliance with fair-software.eu recommendations

Python package to analyze a GitHub or GitLab repository’s compliance with the fair-software.eu recommendations.

Badges

fair-software.nl recommendations
(1/5) code repository
(2/5) license
(3/5) community registry
(4/5) citation
(5/5) checklist
overall
Other best practices
Documentation
Supported Python versions
Code quality
Code coverage of unit tests
DockerHub
GitHub Actions
Citation metadata consistency
Unit tests
Live tests (triggered manually)

Install

pip3 install --user howfairis

Verify that the install directory is on the PATH environment variable. If so, you should be able to call the executable, like so:

howfairis https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>

howfairis supports URLs from the following code repository platforms:

1. https://github.com

2. https://gitlab.com (not including self-hosted instances)

Docker

You can run howfairis Docker image using the command below.

docker pull fairsoftware/howfairis

You can run howfairis Docker image using the command below.

docker run --rm fairsoftware/howfairis --help

–rm argument will remove Docker container after execution.

See developer documentation to learn how to modify the Docker image.

Expected output

Depending on which repository you are doing the analysis for, the output looks something like this:

Checking compliance with fair-software.eu...
url: https://github.com/fair-software/badge-test
(1/5) repository
      ✓ has_open_repository
(2/5) license
      ✓ has_license
(3/5) registry
      × has_ascl_badge
      × has_bintray_badge
      × has_conda_badge
      × has_cran_badge
      × has_crates_badge
      × has_maven_badge
      × has_npm_badge
      ✓ has_pypi_badge
      × has_rsd_badge
      × is_on_github_marketplace
(4/5) citation
      × has_citation_file
      × has_citationcff_file
      × has_codemeta_file
      ✓ has_zenodo_badge
      × has_zenodo_metadata_file
(5/5) checklist
      ✓ has_core_infrastructures_badge

If your README already has the fair-software badge, you’ll see some output like this:

Calculated compliance: ● ● ○ ● ●

Expected badge is equal to the actual badge. It's all good.

If your README doesn’t have the fair-software badge yet, or its compliance is different from what’s been calculated, you’ll see output like this:

Calculated compliance: ● ● ○ ○ ○

It seems you have not yet added the fair-software.eu badge to
your README.md. You can do so by pasting the following snippet:

[![fair-software.eu](https://img.shields.io/badge/fair--software.eu-%E2%97%8F%20%20%E2%97%8F%20%20%E2%97%8B%20%20%E2%97%8B%20%20%E2%97%8B-orange)](https://fair-software.eu)

When you get this message, just copy-and-paste the suggested badge into your README.

Some examples of badges

The color of the badge depends on the level of compliance; the pattern of filled and empty circles will vary depending on which recommendations the repository complies with.

Each circle represents one of the recommendations, meaning the first symbol represents the first recommendation, Use a publicly accessible repository with version control, the second symbol represents the second recommendation, and so on. You can find more information about the recommendations on fair-software.eu.

The state of the third circle indicates the software has been registered in a community registry. Since the repository only complies with one of the recommendations, this badge gets a red color.

The repository with this badge complies with 3 out of 5 recommendations, hence its color is orange. From the open/closed state of the circles, it is a publicly accessible repository with version control. It has been registered in a community registry, and it contains citation information. There is no license in this repository, and the project does not use a checklist.

Almost complete compliance yields a yellow badge. The corresponding repository meets all the recommendations except the one that calls for adding a checklist.

Perfect compliance!

More options

There are some command line options to the executable. You can see them using:

howfairis --help

Which then shows something like:

Usage: howfairis [OPTIONS] [URL]

  Determine compliance with recommendations from fair-software.eu for the
  repository at URL. The following code repository platforms are supported:

  * https://github.com

  * https://gitlab.com (not including any self-hosted instances)

Options:
  -b, --branch TEXT               Which git branch to use. Also accepts other
                                  git references like SHA or tag.

  -u, --user-config-filename PATH
                                  Name of the configuration file to control
                                  howfairis'es behavior. The configuration
                                  file needs to be present on the local system
                                  and can include a relative path.

  -d, --show-default-config       Show default configuration and exit.
  -i, --ignore-repo-config        Ignore any configuration files on the
                                  remote.

  -p, --path TEXT                 Relative path (on the remote). Use this if
                                  you want howfairis to look for a README and
                                  a configuration file in a subdirectory.

  -q, --quiet                     Use this flag to disable all printing except
                                  errors.

  -r, --repo-config-filename TEXT
                                  Name of the configuration file to control
                                  howfairis'es behavior. The configuration
                                  file needs to be on the remote, and takes
                                  into account the value of --branch and
                                  --path. Default: .howfairis.yml

  -t, --show-trace                Show full traceback on errors.
  -v, --version                   Show version and exit.
  -h, --help                      Show this message and exit.

Configuration file

Each category of checks can be skipped using a configuration file. This file needs to be present at URL, taking into account the values passed with --path and with --repo-config-filename.

The configuration file should follow the voluptuous schema laid out in schema.py:

schema = {
    Optional("skip_repository_checks_reason"): Any(str, None),
    Optional("skip_license_checks_reason"): Any(str, None),
    Optional("skip_registry_checks_reason"): Any(str, None),
    Optional("skip_citation_checks_reason"): Any(str, None),
    Optional("skip_checklist_checks_reason"): Any(str, None),
    Optional("ignore_commented_badges"): Any(bool, None)
}

For example, the following is a valid configuration file document:

## Uncomment a line if you want to skip a given category of checks

#skip_repository_checks_reason: <reason for skipping goes here>
#skip_license_checks_reason: <reason for skipping goes here>
#skip_registry_checks_reason: <reason for skipping goes here>
#skip_citation_checks_reason: <reason for skipping goes here>
skip_checklist_checks_reason: "I'm using the Codacy dashboard to guide my development"

ignore_commented_badges: false

The manual override will be reflected in the output, as follows:

(1/5) repository
      ✓ has_open_repository
(2/5) license
      ✓ has_license
(3/5) registry
      × has_ascl_badge
      × has_bintray_badge
      × has_conda_badge
      × has_cran_badge
      × has_crates_badge
      × has_maven_badge
      × has_npm_badge
      ✓ has_pypi_badge
      × has_rsd_badge
      × is_on_github_marketplace
(4/5) citation
      × has_citation_file
      ✓ has_citationcff_file
      × has_codemeta_file
      ✓ has_zenodo_badge
      ✓ has_zenodo_metadata_file
(5/5) checklist
      ✓ skipped (reason: I'm using the Codacy dashboard to guide my development)

Rate limit

By default howfairis uses anonymous requests to the API of the source code platforms. However when a lot of repositories are checked you will exceed the rate limit of those APIs and checks will fail. To increase the rate limit you need to use authenticated requests. Your username and token can be passed to howfairis using environment variables called APIKEY_GITHUB and APIKEY_GITLAB. The format of the environment variable values are:

export APIKEY_GITHUB=<user who made the token>:<personal access token>
export APIKEY_GITLAB=<user who made the token>:<personal access token>

Generation of personal access tokens are explained on GitHub documentation and GitLab documentation. No scopes have to be selected, being authenticated is enough to get higher rate limit.

Contributing

If you want to contribute to the development of howfairis, have a look at the contribution guidelines.

If you’re looking for developer documentation, go here.

Credits

This package was created with Cookiecutter and the NLeSC/python-template.