The Scientific Filesystem is a definition for modular organization of containers to make contents programmatically accessible, and less of black boxes. SCI-F is being developed to encourage modular organization of executables and files within reproducible containers.
It makes it possible to approach an unknown container, and easily know how to use it.
For more detail,see (and comment) on our specification here
SCI-F apps provide modular metrics, tests, and applications within a container.
A container typically has a primary function, which we call a runscript, and apps serve as helpers, additional functions, or metric tests for the container. A SCI-F app can serve any of the following:
A SCI-F app can also be fun. Some of the examples above include `custom` metrics to print a fortune along with a colored cow, or a stream of multicolored pokemon ascii.
SCI-F support will be released with Singularity Version 2.4, however the features are included in the development branch. If you install from development:
git clone -b development https://www.github.com/singularityware/singularity.git
cd singularity
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
sudo make install then you can build a container as your normally would, with any of the app specifications included. You can view the version 2.4 docs for details about the SCI-F definition for Singulairty. Have an app you want to share? There will be easy instructions for adding it here soon. Can you write a text file? it's that easy.
SCI-F is not a standard or format for a container itself, it simply pertains to the organization of the content.
Still have a question? Please reach out! Contributions are greatly appreciated. with open source
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