Install

From source

We recommend using uv to manage your Python environment. Clone the repository and install from source:

git clone git@github.com:andycasey/astra.git
cd astra
uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install -e .

Setup

You will need to initialize a database for Astra. A PostgreSQL database is recommended. The database connection details need to be stored in a ~/.astra/astra.yml file in the following format:

database:
  schema: <schema_name>
  dbname: <database_name>
  user: <user_name>
  host: <host_name>

If you’re using a specific schema, you’ll need to create that schema first, then run:

astra init

Migrating data

Astra does not need to be run in the same computing environment where the data are stored. For this reason, it needs to migrate details about available spectra into the Astra database, and link all the auxiliary data (photometry, astrometry) for those sources:

astra migrate

Building the documentation

To build the Astra documentation locally:

uv pip install -e ".[docs]"
cd docs/
make html

The built documentation pages will be in the docs/build/html folder.