Guide

This guide provides an overview of how to use this template for creating a new Data Package. It includes instructions for using the template and post-creation tasks.

Installing

In order to use this template, you need to install a few programs:

  • Python: Required by the template tool itself (copier) and for installing and using many of the tools in this template.
  • Git: For version control and setting up Git to track the newly created data package.
  • copier: A template tool for making new projects in a standardised and structured way.
  • uv: A tool for managing Python environments and running commands. Some post-copy steps of this template use uv.
  • just: A build management tool that helps with running common build and check tasks.

You will need to install Python and Git yourself, but the other tools can be installed using pipx—which we strongly recommend—with the following command:

pipx install copier uv rust-just

Creating a new data package

You can use this template to create a new Data Package with a standard set of files and folders, as well as all the features and configurations to make it easier to build your data package more smoothly and effectively. First, open a Terminal and move into the directory where you want to create the new Data Package. Then run the following command:

# Copy into the current directory, which is the "."
uvx copier copy --trust gh:seedcase-project/template-data-package .
Caution

This template runs some post-copy commands using your terminal. In order to run them, you need to use the --trust option. Review the copier.yml file, under the _tasks key to see what commands will be run after copying the template, so you can know and trust what the commands are doing. Unfortunately, this template can’t be used without the --trust option.

Applying the template to an existing Data Package

If you want to use this template on an existing Data Package, you can use the copy command of copier just like above to apply the template to the existing Data Package. This will add all the template’s files and configurations to the existing Data Package.

uvx copier copy --trust gh:seedcase-project/template-data-package .

It will go through a series of prompts, as in the case of creating a new Data Package, including asking if you want to overwrite existing files.

Note

To use the copy command, the Data Package needs to be tracked by Git and in a clean state (no changes).

Applying the latest template changes

There are two ways to update an existing Data Package with the latest changes from the template: update and recopy.

Use update to apply template updates to your project without overwriting local changes. update will compare the version of the template you used when you first copied the template with the current version of the template, and then apply the changes that are different. This also means it won’t overwrite any changes you made to files in your current Data Package, for example, if you deleted a file that was in the template, it won’t be copied back.

Use recopy if you want to reapply the template from scratch, which will overwrite any changes you made to the files that were copied from the template. This is useful if you want to reset the Data Package to the state of the template. For example, if you deleted a file but want it back from the template or are simply curious to see if there are any new changes that you might want to use.

In both cases, the commands are very similar and also use many of the same options as the copy command. If you want to use the same answers as given when you first copied the template, you can use the --defaults option. Then it will only prompt you for the questions that have changed since the last time you copied the template.

uvx copier update --trust --defaults
# Or
uvx copier recopy --trust --defaults

As with the copy command, the Data Package needs to be tracked by Git and must be in a clean state (no changes) for the update and recopy commands to work.

Post-creation setup

These steps are mainly for us in the Seedcase Project to set up the repository with the settings we use, but you can follow them if you want to set up your Data Package in a similar way. They are also included in a message after you’ve copied the template.

After copying the template, while in the directory of the new Data Package, run the following:

just install-precommit

Next, install spaid and use the following commands to run the next setup steps:

spaid_gh_create_repo_from_local -h
spaid_gh_set_repo_settings -h
spaid_gh_ruleset_basic_protect_main -h

Some configuration is needed after copying this template to a new repository, including configuration external to the repository.

  • The template file .github/workflows/release-package.yml requires the auto-release-token GitHub App to be installed, as well as a GitHub secret called UPDATE_VERSION_TOKEN and a variable called UPDATE_VERSION_APP_ID to be set up in the repository (or organization) settings. See this guide for more details on how to set this up.