Consider making software and software_version an Union[str | UrlObject | RepositoryObject]

[bruno-f-cruz]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Several experimental workflows run from a remote repository that, ideally, should keep track of a fully deployable and self-resolving environment. We could leverage (and encourage) this behavior and allow users to specify software as an object that could be an URL or Repository Object (we could decide what this looks like, but for instance it could have a branch, commit hash, tag, etc... ) instead of just a generic string. This would make it much easier to specify and re-use as metadata later. Additionally, for the specific case of software_versions, it would also allow users to use config files (e.g. requirements.txt for python environments or bonsai.config for bonsai), by writing down the respective URL to this file, instead of having to write down a version of the used software (along with all the dependencies...).

Describe the solution you'd like
See above. It's still a bit open-ended, so we should discuss the detailed implementation should people want to move forward.

Describe alternatives you've considered
n\a