Cyclus Archetype Developer Guide

Welcome! You are here because you have made (or are making) the transition from wanting to run simulations to wanting to dig in and start dictating agent logic and behavior on a more fundamental level. Perhaps existing archetypes are insufficient for your needs, perhaps you are curious as to how it all works, or are a devilishly handsome thrill-seeker. Whatever your reasons, you have come to the right place! This guide assumes that you have Cyclus installed, are familiar with running simulations and understand user-level concepts. To get started please follow the instructions in hello_world.

Installation

• Getting Started with Cyclus

Hello World

• Hello, Cyclus! [C++]
• A Tour of Cycstub
• Hello, Cyclus! [Python]

Writing Agents & Modules

Tutorial

• Archetype Development Tutorial [C++]
• Archetype Development Tutorial [Python]

Building, Installing and Testing [C++]

• Building Modules with CMake
• Using the Cyclus Preprocessor
• Abusing the Cyclus Preprocessor
• Testing and Debugging Archetypes

Interfacing with the Cyclus Kernel

• Time Step Execution
• Resources
• Dynamic Resource Exchange
• Database Types
• Custom Database Tables
• Errors and Warnings [C++]
• Logging
• Archetype Command Line Interface

A Word About Style

Having a consistent style in your code is important. Python has a great style guide encapsulated in PEP8. As our code base is mostly C++, the kernel development team follows the Google C++ Style Guide (GCSG) as closely as possible, and we invite you to as well! A notable (and required) exception to the GCSG used in Cyclus and Cycamore archetypes is the use of preprocessor-aware private member variables without a trailing underscore, due to consistency requirements across input files, implementation, and databases. Happy (well-styled) coding!

Under the Hood

• Initialization and Restart
• Radioactive Decay in Cyclus

Cyclus Toolkit

• The (Experimental) Cyclus Toolkit