Album: executable building blocks for scientific imaging routines, from sharing to LLM-assisted orchestration

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Albrecht, Jan Philipp, Schmidt, Deborah, Rieckert, Lucas, Otto, Maximilian, Harrington, Kyle
Format: Preprint
Published: 2021
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author Albrecht, Jan Philipp
Schmidt, Deborah
Rieckert, Lucas
Otto, Maximilian
Harrington, Kyle
author_facet Albrecht, Jan Philipp
Schmidt, Deborah
Rieckert, Lucas
Otto, Maximilian
Harrington, Kyle
contents Open-source scientific software is a major driver of scientific progress, yet its development and reuse remain difficult in collaborative settings. Researchers repeatedly face four recurring challenges: discovering and reproducing existing routines, adapting them for new use cases, sharing and scaling them across collaborators, and stabilizing them with reproducible execution environments. We present Album, an open-source framework for packaging and sharing scientific routines as executable artifacts through two minimal primitives: (i) the solution, a Python-native executable entry point that combines machine-readable metadata, arguments, environment specifications, and lifecycle hooks; and (ii) the catalog, a decentralized, git-native distribution mechanism with indexed search and optional web rendering for discovery, provenance, and governance. Album uses a two-context execution model in which a host controller evaluates manifests and prepares per-solution environments, while lifecycle hooks execute inside isolated solution environments. This design supports reproducible execution, post-environment setup, and the composition of routines with incompatible dependencies. Album can be used in conjunction with LLM agents: solutions can be drafted and revised with LLM assistance, and a MCP interface exposes cataloged solutions as callable tools for tool-grounded discovery and orchestration. We evaluate Album through four realworld imaging deployments spanning interactive visualization of electron microscopy data, integration of multiple segmentation methods, the orchestration of cryo-electron tomography competition workflows, and mineral quantification pipelines. Overall, Album complements package managers, workflow systems, and container runtimes by making scientific routines executable, shareable artifacts. Documentation and examples are available at https://album.solutions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2110_00601
institution arXiv
publishDate 2021
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Album: executable building blocks for scientific imaging routines, from sharing to LLM-assisted orchestration
Albrecht, Jan Philipp
Schmidt, Deborah
Rieckert, Lucas
Otto, Maximilian
Harrington, Kyle
Digital Libraries
Quantitative Methods
Open-source scientific software is a major driver of scientific progress, yet its development and reuse remain difficult in collaborative settings. Researchers repeatedly face four recurring challenges: discovering and reproducing existing routines, adapting them for new use cases, sharing and scaling them across collaborators, and stabilizing them with reproducible execution environments. We present Album, an open-source framework for packaging and sharing scientific routines as executable artifacts through two minimal primitives: (i) the solution, a Python-native executable entry point that combines machine-readable metadata, arguments, environment specifications, and lifecycle hooks; and (ii) the catalog, a decentralized, git-native distribution mechanism with indexed search and optional web rendering for discovery, provenance, and governance. Album uses a two-context execution model in which a host controller evaluates manifests and prepares per-solution environments, while lifecycle hooks execute inside isolated solution environments. This design supports reproducible execution, post-environment setup, and the composition of routines with incompatible dependencies. Album can be used in conjunction with LLM agents: solutions can be drafted and revised with LLM assistance, and a MCP interface exposes cataloged solutions as callable tools for tool-grounded discovery and orchestration. We evaluate Album through four realworld imaging deployments spanning interactive visualization of electron microscopy data, integration of multiple segmentation methods, the orchestration of cryo-electron tomography competition workflows, and mineral quantification pipelines. Overall, Album complements package managers, workflow systems, and container runtimes by making scientific routines executable, shareable artifacts. Documentation and examples are available at https://album.solutions.
title Album: executable building blocks for scientific imaging routines, from sharing to LLM-assisted orchestration
topic Digital Libraries
Quantitative Methods
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.00601