Manage and automate complex scientific workflows with Asimov

From managing the creation of analyses, monitoring them as they run, and handling the post-processing of results, Asimov has your back while improving the reliability and reproducability of analyses.

$ pip install asimov

Latest release: 0.5.6

Lightweight, but build for scale

Asimov began life as a project for managing very large analyses from gravitational wave searches, but it's just as happy working on small projects.

Get started by following the installation documentation.

Using pip

Asimov is included in the python package index, making it easy to install with a single command on most systems
$ pip install asimov
We recommend always installing inside a virtual environment.

Using conda

Asimov is also available from conda-forge, and can be installed in conda environments.
$ conda install -c conda-forge asimov

Analyse a gravitational wave

Get started on your own gravitational wave analysis by following the getting started guide.

Create new analyses with just a few lines of configuration

We often want to run multiple analyses on the same data with just a few settings changed.

Asimov makes this easy, and makes sure that the analyses are internally consistent, thanks to its analysis blueprints feature.

Analysis sets can be saved and applied to multiple subjects, for example, the entire set of analyses required to reproduce a GWTC catalogue analysis can be applied to an event with a single command.

kind: analysis
name: get-data
pipeline: gwdata
download:
  - frames

---
kind: analysis
name: noise-analysis
pipeline: bayeswave
needs: get-data

---
kind: analysis
name: main-analysis
pipeline: bilby
needs: noise-analysis
Asimov takes care of setting up each pipeline consistently, so that you don't need to learn how the configurations for each analysis work to set them up correctly.

Keeping things running smoothly

Asimov works with the htcondor scheduling system to keep track of your analyses.

It can produce web-pages with details of all your analyses so that they can easily be checked on the go.

Asimov will attempt to fix and restart pipelines which have stopped running, or alert you if it's not able to fix the problem.

$ asimov monitor

Easy to extend

Asimov allows you to hook-up your own analysis pipeline with just a small amount of code, allowing you to take advantage of its powerful automation features.

Visit the pipeline development guide to learn how to make your analysis work with asimov.

Rigorous and reproducable

Asimov makes it easy for you to distribute exact details of your analyses, making rerunning and reproducing your analyses straightforward. Simply include a copy of your asimov blueprints in your data release to allow for analyses to be repeated and remixed.

A full recipe book

Explore a set of curated analysis blueprints for supported analysis pipelines in our recipe book. You no longer need to spend all day reading the documentation for a new analysis method, just use one of our recipes and start analysing!

Project news

10 Nov 2023

asimov 0.5.4

I’m pleased to announce the release of the latest version of asimov.

10 Mar 2023

Running asimov on a single machine

If you’re looking to try out asimov on your own laptop or workstation you’ll quickly run into a bit of a limitation: asimov, and the codes it works with, are designed to run on a large computing cluster. However, we can get around this by installing a lightweight version of the software used on clusters on your own machine before we try to run asimov.

21 Feb 2023

Asimov 0.4.0

I’m very pleased to announce that the first release of the 0.4 development and review cycle for asimov!

21 Jun 2021

GWTC-2: introducing 39 new gravitational waves

I remember as a child religiously reading the Argos catalogue; probably sometimes looking for Christmas presents, but often just looking at how many things you could possibly buy from one shop. As I got older I started to wonder how on earth they managed to put such a large catalogue together. Five years after the first detection of a gravitational wave signal, I have a little insight into just how hard the latter process is, and a little more appreciation for how much the Universe has to offer.

25 May 2021

Asimov v0.3.0 now available!

The latest release of asimov is now available from our gitlab server, as well as being available on pypi.

Related publications

Beyond GWTC-3: Analysing and verifying new gravitational-wave events from the 4-OGC Catalogue


2021

GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the Second Part of the Third Observing Run


The third Gravitational-wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-3) describes signals detected with Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo up to the end of their third observing run. Updating the previous GWTC-2.1, ...

2022

GWTC-2.1: Deep Extended Catalog of Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run


The second gravitational-wave transient catalog, GWTC-2, reported on 39 compact binary coalescences observed by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors between 1 April 2019 15:00 UTC and 1 O...

2021

GWTC-2: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run

Physical Review X
We report on gravitational-wave discoveries from compact binary coalescences detected by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo in the first half of the third observing run (O3a) between 1 April 2019 15∶...

Project name: asimov

Find it on GitHub

Dates: 2020-02 - Present

Project Status: Ongoing

Project Description
Modern gravitational wave analysis can involve multiple analysis pipelines operating over dozens or even hundreds of events. Managing this at scale is a challenge; asimov is designed to simplify the construction and monitoring of analyses.