README.md

An example of how to include a custom dosing / LED / temperature automation

This is an example repository for creating a custom automation for the Pioreactor. By turning your automation into a repository, it can be installed easier into your Pioreactor cluster, and can be shared with others:

If available on PyPI:

pio install-plugin <plugin-name>

(And also pios to install across your entire cluster.)

If avaiable on Github:

pio install-plugin <plugin-name> --url <git+ url>

Components to make your own automation plugin

Python logic

This is the core logic that interacts with the pioreactor software. See the class MyCustomDosingAutomation for details. Note the following:

• subclasses from DosingAutomationJobContrib, LEDAutomationJobContrib, or TemperatureAutomationJobContrib
• requires a automation_name
• requires an execute

There are many other examples of automations in our core repository

It's important that the class is imported into the __init__.py, as this is how DosingController discovers it.

setup.py

This can be copy-pasted into your project, with the fields updated. The most important field is

  entry_points={'pioreactor.plugins': 'pioreactor_custom_dosing_automation = pioreactor_custom_dosing_automation'},

This is necessary, and your code should be updated with the correct name of your plugin.

Adding specific settings to config.ini

Using the file additional_config.ini (must be located in the source code's folder), you can add user-editable settings for your automation. This will be merged into the config.ini.

Adding your automation to the UI

You can specify the automation in the automation drop-down in the UI, and specify its fields and default values to be shown to the user.

Create a folder called ui in the source code folder. Inside it, create a folder called contrib. And inside that, create a folder depending on your automation type: dosing, led, or temperature. See below for example directory structure.

MANIFEST.in

In order for Python to include ui and/or additional_config.ini, we need to specify them in a MANIFEST.in file. Copy-paste the MANIFEST.in from this project, and make the appropriate substitutions in its contents.

Example directory structure for your plugin

 plugin_name/
    __init__.py
    other_python_files.py
    additional_config.ini
    ui/
      contrib/
        automations/
          dosing/
            plugin_name.yaml        OR
          led/
            plugin_name.yaml        OR
          temperature/
            plugin_name.yaml
setup.py
MANIFEST.in