TCIA Data Retriever for Python

This package bundles the headless TCIA Data Retriever executable with a small Python interface. It uses the same Go transfer core as the desktop application. It has no Python runtime dependencies and does not require a desktop, Go, Node, or a separately installed executable. Installation does not grant controlled data access.

The proposed distribution name is tcia-data-retriever; publication and name availability must be confirmed by maintainers before announcing installation. After publication, install a supported platform wheel with:

python -m pip install --only-binary=:all: tcia-data-retriever
tcia-data-retriever --help

Read the TCIA data usage policy before explicitly accepting it:

from tcia_data_retriever import download

report = download("manifest.csv", "./images", accept_data_policy=True)
print(report["downloaded"], report["failed"])

For restricted data, obtain your own approved JSON key and pass only its path:

report = download(
    "controlled_manifest.csv", "./images",
    accept_data_policy=True, credential_file="/path/to/credentials.json",
)

The current transfer core may save a private copy of the supplied credential in the platform's TCIA application configuration directory. Use an isolated runtime/user account when that persistence is inappropriate, and remove the saved credential when finished. Neither credentials nor temporary storage URLs are included in the Python completion report.

download() accepts a local manifest, output directory, processes (default 8), max_retries (default 3), skip_existing (default false), and directory_mode (descriptive or classic). It inherits console progress, closes child stdin, and returns a schema-versioned summary. Failed or partial runs raise DownloadError with returncode and, when available, report. Missing or malformed reports are failures even if the process returned zero. Ctrl-C requests cancellation, then re-raises KeyboardInterrupt.

For all existing CLI options use the console command or python -m tcia_data_retriever. --help and --version need no policy acceptance. Transfers require --accept-data-policy; interactive password prompts are unsupported. build_info() returns package version, source commit and binary SHA256. executable() resolves the packaged executable without searching PATH. No executable is fetched or updated at runtime.

This package is independent of tcia_utils. A future optional tcia_utils extra can depend on it after the TDR interface is merged and compatible wheels are published. Existing Python transfer routes are not automatically replaced.