Running it locally

If you want to run SimWrapper on your own server or laptop, there are a few ways to do so.

Install from uv/pip

This is the easiest solution for most of you. SimWrapper is a website, but for ease of of local installation we've also packaged it up as a super simple 'simwrapper' command-line package on the PyPi software repository. You don't need to know Python to use this package.

Shortest path to a running local installation:

Use the uv software manager which is the most modern Python packaging ecosystem out there. uv eliminates the problems with virtual environments, messy multiple python versions, etc. It is far, far faster and more error-proof than using pip or other methods.

• Install uv first if you don't already have it: https://docs.astral.sh/uv/getting-started/installation
• Run uv tool install simwrapper to install simwrapper as a command-line program on your system. Read the output from the install command; you might need to edit your PATH to include the program.
• Now go to the folder containing the data you want to explore, and run uv tool run simwrapper
• That's it! Your site is running at http://localhost:4999

You can upgrade with uv tool upgrade simwrapper

pip

You can also use pip directly, with pip install simwrapper. If you go this route, you should probably create a virtualenv (venv) and make sure you have a recent version of Python. These extra steps can be a real pain, especially because the tool has many datascience dependencies which are difficult to install. Please use uv instead, as above :-)

Use Docker

SimWrapper is available as a built Docker image at https://hub.docker.com/r/simwrapper/app

Let's assume you already know how to use Docker if you are reading this!

• docker pull simwrapper/app
• docker run -p 4999:4999 -v /my/data/folder:/data simwrapper/app

The -p tells docker to listen on port 4999; -v links your local folder of files to /data in the container image, where simwrapper will then be able to access them.

Build the site yourself

Please read the developer's guide for full instructions on how to build and run the site locally.

This should only be necessary if you want to file/fix bugs or add special features for your own instance. PR's gladly accepted!