Glossary¶
Plain-language definitions of the terms used across this site.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| CI / CI/CD | Continuous Integration. Automated checks (validation, execution, security, docs build) that run when you open a pull request or merge. |
| Unified workflow | The single reusable workflow, notebook-ci-unified.yml, in notebook-ci-actions. It is the source of truth for how the CI behaves. |
| Caller workflow | A small workflow file in your repo (under .github/workflows/) that calls the unified workflow and sets its inputs. |
@v1 |
A version tag your caller pins to. @v1 follows the latest v1.x.x release; you can also pin an exact tag (@v1.2.3) or a commit SHA. See Semantic Versioning. |
main |
Your repository's default branch, where notebooks are merged and published from. |
gh-pages branch |
The branch GitHub Pages serves your published notebook HTML from. |
gh-storage branch |
Where the CI stores executed versions of your notebooks; used to build HTML and as a baseline for the weekly scheduled run. |
_toc.yml |
The JupyterBook table of contents: which notebooks appear in your published docs and in what order. |
_config.yml |
The JupyterBook configuration: title, author, logo, analytics, and other site settings. |
requirements.txt |
The list of Python packages your notebooks need. Can be repo-wide or per notebook directory. |
| nbval | A pytest plugin the CI uses to validate that a notebook's outputs are consistent. |
| nbconvert | The tool the CI uses to execute a notebook top to bottom. |
| bandit | A security scanner the CI runs to flag risky code patterns (e.g. hardcoded secrets). |
| CRDS | Calibration Reference Data System, used by JWST/HST-style pipelines. Configured via the crds-* workflow inputs. |
| Execution mode | The workflow input (pr, merge, scheduled, on-demand) that tells the unified workflow which scenario it is running. Not to be confused with the local harness's EXECUTION_MODE variable. |
| Pre/post-processing script | Optional scripts (pre-processing-script, post-processing-script inputs) that run before or after notebook execution, e.g. to stage data or post-process images. |
| Selective execution | Running only the notebook subdirectory that changed instead of the whole repo. See Selective Execution & Smart Workflows. |
| Smart routing | Detecting that only docs/config changed and skipping notebook execution. See Selective Execution & Smart Workflows. |
| Template repository | notebook-ci-template, the starting point for a new notebook repo. |
| SPB | The STScI team you submit a help ticket to (internal). |