Configuration#

uataq’s configuration is one JSON file, src/uataq/config.json, with an entry for each site: its name and location, the research groups that log it, and its instruments with their dates. uataq reads it when it is imported, and Sites and instruments shows it as tables. A change at a site is written in this file (see Contributing). This page lists its keys.

Site keys#

Each site is an entry of the configuration, keyed by its SID (WBB). It accepts:

name: The site’s name, such as "William Browning Building".
latitude / longitude: A fixed site’s position, in degrees (longitude is negative in Utah). A mobile site has neither: its gps gives the position of each measurement.
zagl: The height above ground level of a fixed site’s measurements, in meters.
is_mobile: true for a site on a vehicle (a TRAX train or a bus), which get_site() returns as a MobileSite. Omit it for a fixed site.
is_active: false marks a site that has been taken down. Nothing reads it: whether a site is active is decided by its instruments’ removal_date.
loggers: The same map as an instrument’s loggers (below), for every instrument at the site that does not give its own.
instruments: The site’s instruments, keyed by instrument name; each takes the keys below. Required.

Instrument keys#

Each entry under a site’s instruments accepts:

loggers

Map of research group to the logger that group records the instrument with. Every group listed operates the instrument.

installation_date / removal_date

When the instrument was installed at and removed from the site. Reads are clipped to this window. Omit removal_date while it is still installed. Each is an instant in UTC: a date alone is that day’s midnight, and a time of day can follow it ("2025-01-06 19:30:00"), as at the MetOne swaps, where the ES642’s removal_date is the ES405’s installation_date.

group_dates (optional)

Map of research group to a [start, stop] pair: the half-open window [start, stop) that group’s archive holds this instrument’s data for. Either end may be null for unbounded. Dates are exact instants, like installation_date: a stop of "2017-10-28" means 2017-10-28 00:00. A group not listed covers the whole installation.

Only needed when two groups log the same instrument but one archive stops early. When no group is named, a read crossing a window edge is split there, and each portion is read from the most preferred group whose window covers it: the default group first, then the order of loggers. For example, TRX01’s 2b_205 lists "lin": ["2015-05-13", "2017-10-28"], so an automatic read takes lin data through 2017-10-27 and horel data after it. The stop dates here are the midnight after lin’s last sample.

Note

Some of horel’s data are only at the raw level, so a final-level read, as get_obs() makes, has a gap between lin’s stop and horel’s first final data, as in the example above: see Months that are only raw.

es642_column_dates (optional)

Only for a metone_es405: map of research group to a [start, stop] pair, the half-open window [start, stop) in which that group’s qaqc and final files give the instrument’s values under the metone_es642’s column names (ES642_PM2.5_Concentration and so on). Inside the window the ES405 reads those columns as its own; outside it ignores them. Horel’s files do this at BUS01 (["2026-02-01", "2026-04-01"]) and BUS02 (["2025-03-13 02:38:00", "2026-04-01"]) for the months after each swap, and use the ES405’s own names from April 2026. At BUS02 the window starts at the ES405’s installation because its flow, temperature, humidity, pressure and error code are under ES642 names from then; its PM2.5 under that name is empty until November 2025, so qaqc has no PM2.5 for 2025-03-13 to 2025-11-01 (the raw file has it).

model (optional)

The instrument class to use when it differs from the instrument’s name.

notes (optional)

Free text; not read by the code.