Plugins
Defining plugins
bilby allows for additional customizations/extra features via plugins.
This allows users to add new functionality without the need to modify the main
bilby codebase, for example to add a new sampler.
To make your plugins discoverable to bilby, you need to specify a plugin
group (which bilby knows to search for), a name for the plugin, and the
python path to your function/class within your package metadata, see here
for details. For example, if you have a package called mypackage and
you wish to add a plugin called my_awesome_plugin within the group
bilby.plugin, you would specify the following in your pyproject.toml
file:
[project.entry-points."bilby.plugin"]
my_awesome_plugin = "mypackage.plugin"
Currently bilby allows for the following plugin groups:
"bilby.samplers": group for adding samplers tobilby. See Sampler plugins for more details.
Sampler plugins
Sampler plugins can specified via the "bilby.samplers" group and these
are automatically added to the ‘known’ samplers in bilby.
This allows users to add support for new samplers without having to modify the
core bilby codebase.
Sampler plugins should implement a sampler class that in inherits from one of
the following classes:
We provide a template for creating sampler plugins on GitHub.
Note
When implementing a new sampler plugin, please avoid using a generic name for the plugin (e.g. ‘nest’, ‘mcmc’) as this may lead to naming conflicts.
Sampler plugin library
This is a list of known sampler plugins. if you don’t see your plugin listed here, we encourage you to open a merge request to add it.
This could be your sampler
Information for bilby developers
Using plugins within bilby
Within bilby, plugins are discovered with the
bilby.core.utils.get_entry_points() function,
and can be used throughout the bilby infrastructure.
Adding a new plugin group
If you want to add support for a new plugin group, please open an issue to discuss the details with other developers.