The Reproducible Execution Environment Specification

repo2docker scans a repository for particular Configuration Files, such as requirements.txt or REQUIRE. The collection of files, their contents, and the resulting actions that repo2docker takes is known as the Reproducible Execution Environment Specification (or REES).

The goal of the REES is to automate and encourage existing community best practices for reproducible computational environments. This includes installing pacakges using community-standard specification files and their corresponding tools, such as requirements.txt (with pip), REQUIRE (with Julia), or apt.txt (with apt). While repo2docker automates the creation of the environment, a human should be able to look at a REES-compliant repository and reproduce the environment using common, clear steps without repo2docker software.

Currently, the definition of the REE Specification is the following:

Any directory containing zero or more files from the Configuration Files list is a valid reproducible execution environment as defined by the REES. The configuration files have to all be placed either in the root of the directory, in a binder/ sub-directory or a .binder/ sub-directory.

For example, the REES recognises requirements.txt as a valid config file. The file format is as defined by the requirements.txt standard of the Python community. A REES-compliant tool will install a Python interpreter (of unspecified version) and perform the equivalent action of pip install -r requirements.txt so that the user can afterwards run python and use the packages installed.