Kausal Paths

Kausal Paths is a tool for predicting the future emissions of cities based on historical emission data and various climate actions. Users can compare how emissions develop in different scenarios. Data is provided using a GraphQL API.

Installation

Prerequisites

Make sure you have installed the following:

• a package manager (e.g., homebrew for macOS, apt for Ubuntu, etc.)
• git
• python
• uv (python package manager)
• direnv (auto-loads environment variables)
  - Beginner Hints: before direnv works you need to hook it into your shell: depending on which shell you're using (find out with echo $SHELL)
  add eval "$(direnv hook bash)" to your ~/.bashrc OR eval "$(direnv hook zsh)" to your ~/.zshrc (create those files if they don't exist yet).
  After that, restart the terminal or run source ~/.bashrc OR source ~/.zshrc.

Development

After cloning the repository, move to your project root directory (paths folder) and allow loading environment variables:
direnv allow

In the project root directory, create and activate a Python virtual environment:

uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate

Install the required Python packages:

uv sync

Configure the PyPI index URL in your .envrc file (create it if it doesn't exist yet) if you have access to the Kausal private extensions (ask a team member for access):

export UV_INDEX_KAUSAL_USERNAME=...
export UV_INDEX_KAUSAL_PASSWORD=...

Then install the dependencies like this:

uv sync --extra kausal

If you need to run Jupyter notebooks, include the notebook dependency group:

uv sync --group notebook --extra kausal

Create a file called local_settings.py in your repository root with the following contents:

from paths.settings import BASE_DIR

DEBUG = True

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': 'paths',
        'ATOMIC_REQUESTS': True,
    }
}

Note for macOS users: You might need to install a few packages separately

brew install snappy
CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/include -L/opt/homebrew/lib" pip install python-snappy

brew install postgresql@16
brew services start postgresql@16

cd ~/Documents/kausal-paths  # or wherever your project is
source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install psycopg2

brew install gdal geos

then set the library path in your local kausal-paths/local_settings.py to the correct path shown in ls -la /opt/homebrew/lib/*gdal*:

GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH = '/opt/homebrew/lib/libgdal.dylib'
GEOS_LIBRARY_PATH = '/opt/homebrew/lib/libgeos_c.dylib' 

brew tap hashicorp/tap
brew install hashicorp/tap/vault

Run migrations:

python manage.py migrate

Create a superuser:

You might need the following translations during the createsuperuser operation: käyttäjätunnus = username, sähköpostiosoite = e-mail

python manage.py createsuperuser

Compile the translation files:

python manage.py compilemessages

Set Credentials and update database:

• First, make sure your team added your access rights in Vault keycloak and send you the command to login again.

• Clone the scripts repository (ask a team mate where to find it).

• Go to paths root directory and run the script ../scripts/common/switch-region.sh while in paths root directory, which should automatically update all needed credentials in .secrets/db-backup

• Follow the instructions the command gives you, there's a variable you need to put in .env and then the commands to restore the db

Then run

dropdb paths ; createdb paths && DB_BACKUP_SECRET_PATH=.secrets/db-backup kausal_common/docker/manage-db-backup.sh restore

You can now run the backend:

python manage.py runserver

The GraphQL API is now available at http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/graphql/.