Note: FireWorks is under active development; major features are yet to be implemented, and the internal code is refactored often and not suitable for production. However, certain components of the code are available for initial testing.
FireWorks is a code for defining, managing, and executing scientific workflows. It can be used to automate most types of calculations over arbitrary computing resources, including those that have a queueing system.
FireWorks is intended to be a friendly workflow software that is easy to get started with, but flexible enough to handle complicated use cases.
Some (but not all) of its features include:
Some limitations of FireWorks include:
It can be time-consuming to evaluate whether a workflow software will meet your computing needs from documentation alone. If you just want to know whether FireWorks is a potential solution to your workflow problem, one option is to e-mail a description of your problem to the developer at:
We can tell you if:
To get started with FireWorks, we suggest that you follow our core tutorials. These tutorials will set up a central server as well as worker computers. They will also demonstrate how to define and run basic workflows. We expect that completing all of the core tutorials will take between one and three hours. (You might want to get a snack...)
Depending on your application, you might also be interested in the following tutorials:
Planned future tutorials:
Want to see something added or changed? There are many ways to make that a reality! Some ways to get involved are:
The collaborative way to submit questions, issues, and all other communication is through the FireWorks Github page. You can also contact:
FireWorks was developed primarily by Anubhav Jain at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, using research funding from Kristin Persson for the Materials Project.
Michael Kocher and Dan Gunter initiated the architecture of a central database with multiple workers that queued ‘placeholder’ scripts responsible for checking out jobs. Some of Michael’s code was refashioned for the QueueLauncher and the PBS QueueAdapter.
Shyue Ping Ong was extremely helpful in providing guidance and feedback, as well as the nitty gritty of getting set up with Sphinx documentation, PyPI, continuous integration, etc. The code for modifying a FireWork specification using a dictionary (DictMod) was adapted (with permission) from his custodian library. Incidentally, that library is a nice complement to FireWorks for use in FireTasks. Also, if you are in the market for a free Python materials analysis code, I highly recommend his pymatgen library (which I also sometimes contribute to).
Wei Chen was the first test pilot of FireWorks, and contributed greatly to improving the docs and ensuring that FireWorks installation went smoothly for others. In addition, he made many suggestions to improve the usability of the code.
FireWorks is developed under a BSD-style License (a very permissive open-source license), reproduced below:
FireWorks Copyright (c) 2013, The Regents of the University of
California, through Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (subject
to receipt of any required approvals from the U.S. Dept. of Energy).
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
(1) Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
(2) Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with
the distribution.
(3) Neither the name of the University of California, Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy nor the names of
its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived
from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
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