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CATChem Developer Guide

Welcome to the CATChem Developer Guide! Whether you are a new contributor or an experienced developer, this guide provides the information you need to understand, develop, and extend the CATChem framework.

Getting Started

If you are new to CATChem, here are the first steps to get you started:

  1. Contributor Guide: This is the essential starting point for all contributors. It covers the basics of how to contribute to the project, including our development workflow and pull request process.
  2. Coding Standards: Before writing any code, please review our coding standards. This will help you write code that is consistent, maintainable, and performant.
  3. Architecture Overview: For a high-level overview of the software architecture and design principles of CATChem, please refer to this guide.

Core Concepts

CATChem is built on a set of modern software engineering principles and patterns. Understanding these core concepts is key to developing effectively within the framework. For a deep dive into the foundational infrastructure of CATChem, including state management, configuration, diagnostics, and error handling, please see the Core Concepts section.

Development Guides

Ready to dive in? These guides provide detailed information on specific areas of development:

  • Core Concepts

    A deep dive into the foundational infrastructure of CATChem, including state management, configuration, diagnostics, and error handling.

  • Process Development

    Learn how to create new atmospheric processes and schemes, and how to integrate them into the CATChem framework.

  • Integration

    Guides for integrating CATChem with various host models, such as FV3, and other frameworks like CCPP and NUOPC.

  • Testing

    An overview of the testing framework, including how to write unit tests, integration tests, and validation benchmarks.

  • Documentation

    Our standards and best practices for writing clear, comprehensive documentation for your code.

Development Workflow

Our development workflow is based on Git and GitHub. Here is a typical cycle:

  1. Set up your environment: Fork the repository, clone it, and create a development build using CMake.
  2. Create a feature branch: All new work should be done in a feature branch.
  3. Develop, test, and document: Write your code, add corresponding tests, and update the documentation.
  4. Commit and push: Use conventional commit messages and push your branch to your fork.
  5. Create a pull request: Open a pull request to the main CATChem repository for review.

For detailed instructions, please see the Contributor Guide.

Getting Help

We are here to help! If you have questions or need support, please use our community resources:

  • GitHub Discussions: For technical discussions, questions, and answers.
  • Issue Tracker: For bug reports and feature requests.
  • Developer Meetings: We hold regular virtual meetings for developers. Please contact the development team for details.