Development Guides

Internal guides covering the development infrastructure, UI patterns, and code style used across the Synaptipy codebase.

Overview

Synaptipy follows a strict three-layer architecture:

  • Core layer (src/Synaptipy/core/) - Pure Python analysis logic, fully decoupled from the GUI and independently testable. All analysis functions are registered via the @AnalysisRegistry.register() decorator.

  • Application layer (src/Synaptipy/application/) - PySide6 (Qt6) user interface, plugin manager, session state, and controllers.

  • Infrastructure layer (src/Synaptipy/infrastructure/) - File I/O via Neo and PyNWB; NWB export.

Code Quality

All code must pass the following checks before merging:

# Auto-format
black src/ tests/
isort src/ tests/

# Lint
flake8 src/ tests/

# Test
python scripts/run_tests.py

  • black - line-length 120, target Python 3.10

  • isort - profile black

  • flake8 - max-line-length 120, max-complexity 10

  • pytest - CI runs on Ubuntu/Windows/macOS across Python 3.10, 3.11, 3.12

Key Design Rules

  1. Registry import rule - Always import Synaptipy.core.analysis (the full package), never just from Synaptipy.core.analysis.registry import AnalysisRegistry. The full import triggers sub-module decorators.

  2. PySide6 == 6.7.3 - Do not widen or loosen this pin.

  3. GC disabled in offscreen mode - gc.disable() in test conftest.

  4. Plot teardown order - unlink, close, cancel events, widget.clear(), clear refs, flush registry. See the developer guide for details.

Contributing

See the Developer Guide for environment setup, coding standards, testing, and the contribution workflow. The Plugin Guide covers adding analysis modules without modifying core code.

Development