Note: FireWorks is under active development. It is currently incomplete and not useable as workflow software. However, certain components of the code are available for initial testing.
FireWorks is a code for defining, managing, and executing scientific workflows. It can be used to automate most types of calculations over arbitrary computing resources.
FireWorks is intended to be a friendly workflow software that is easy to get started with, but flexible enough to handle complicated use cases.
Some (but not all) of its features include:
Some limitations of FireWorks include:
It can be time-consuming to evaluate whether a workflow software will meet your computing needs from documentation alone. If you just want to know whether FireWorks is a potential solution to your workflow problem, one option is to e-mail a description of your problem to the developer at:
We can tell you if:
To get started with FireWorks, we suggest that you follow our installation tutorial. The tutorial will help guide you through set up of both worker computers and the central computer, as well as demonstrate how to define and run basic workflows.
Want to see something added or changed? There are many ways to make that a reality! Some ways to get involved are:
The collaborative way to submit questions, issues, and all other communication is through the FireWorks Github page. You can also contact:
Michael Kocher and Dan Gunter initiated the architecture of a central database with multiple workers that queued ‘placeholder’ scripts responsible for checking out jobs. Some of Michael’s code for pulling jobs onto nodes was refashioned for FireWorks.
Shyue Ping Ong was extremely helpful in providing guidance and feedback, as well as the nitty gritty of getting set up with Sphinx documentation, PyPI, etc. If you are in the market for a free Python materials analysis code, I highly recommend his pymatgen library (which I also sometimes contribute to).
Wei Chen was the first test pilot of FireWorks, and contributed greatly to improving the docs and ensuring that FireWorks installation went smoothly for others.
FireWorks was developed primarily at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab using research funding from Kristin Persson for the Materials Project.