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Source

A Source is a global, reusable registry entry for the things that produce data: analysis codes, diagnostic systems, schedulers, people and organisations.

A Source is not one kind of thing in the provenance graph. Its kind decides what it becomes, which is why a diagnostic and an analysis code are registered the same way but appear differently in the lineage.

Field Type Required Description
name string Yes Unique identifier for the source (e.g. efit, jintrac)
description string No Extended description of the code or diagnostic
kind enum Yes software, instrument, person, or organization. See below
device_name string No Optionally scope the source to a device; global if omitted

Kinds

kind Example Becomes How it attaches to a run
software EFIT, JINTRAC, a scheduler a software agent associated with the run, carrying a role
instrument a Thomson scattering system an entity the run used it, in the instrument role
person an operator, a principal investigator a person associated with, or attributed the data
organization a diagnostic group, a facility an organisation associated with, or delegated to

In particular, specifying when a source is an instrument is important. A diagnostic is a tool, not something that bears responsibility for a result, so it is an entity a run used rather than an agent the run was associated with. Because an instrument is an entity, measured data needs a run to attach it to. There is no direct link from a dataset to the instrument that produced it.

Register it once; reuse it across every run:

curl -X POST "$API/sources/" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "efit", "description": "EFIT equilibrium reconstruction code",
       "kind": "software"}'

source = requests.post(
    f"{API}/sources/",
    headers=headers,
    json={
        "name": "efit",
        "description": "EFIT equilibrium reconstruction code",
        "kind": "software",
    },
).json()

source = httpx.post(
    f"{API}/sources/",
    headers=headers,
    json={
        "name": "efit",
        "description": "EFIT equilibrium reconstruction code",
        "kind": "software",
    },
).json()

const source = await (
  await fetch(`${API}/sources/`, {
    method: "POST",
    headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${TOKEN}`, "Content-Type": "application/json" },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      name: "efit",
      description: "EFIT equilibrium reconstruction code",
      kind: "software",
    }),
  })
).json();

See Provenance for how a Source connects to the Activities (runs) and the Datasets they produce.