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WCRP Plugins

The WCRP plugins provide project-specific compliance checks for WCRP datasets such as CMIP6 and CORDEX-CMIP6, built on top of the IOOS Compliance Checker.

Each plugin has its own orchestration layer (wcrp_project.py), which acts as the controller for WCRP validation logic deciding:

  • Which checks to run
  • With what severity
  • According to each project’s configuration

Available Plugins

Plugin Name Checker Tag Description
wcrp_cmip6 wcrp_cmip6:1.0 Validation of CMIP6 NetCDF files
wcrp_cordex_cmip6 wcrp_cordex_cmip6:1.0 Validation of CORDEX-CMIP6 NetCDF files
wcrp_cmip7 wcrp_cmip7:1.0 Validation of CMIP7 NetCDF files
wcrp_data wcrp_data:1.0 Data Validation of CMIP6/CMIP7 NetCDF files

Each plugin has its own TOML configuration file defining specific rules, severities, and variable mappings.

What Each Plugin Does

Each WCRP plugin:

Loads its configuration file(s), which defines:

  • Which checks to run (DRS, attributes, time, metadata, etc.)
  • The severity of each check (High = Mandatory, Medium = Recommended, Low = Warning)

Runs the atomic checks implemented in checks/…:

  • Examples: dimension existence/size, variable shape, time bounds, filename/DRS consistency, physical plausibility, missing values, etc.

Aggregates results and returns them to the Compliance Checker core,
which formats them into human-readable or machine-readable outputs (text, HTML, JSON).

Configuration

WCRP plugins are driven by TOML configuration files. CMIP6/CMIP7 currently use a split-TOML layout, while CORDEX-CMIP6 and the Data plugin still rely on a single TOML file (legacy layout).

For a full description of the TOML tree, naming conventions, and the underlying configuration model, see: Configuration (configuration.md).

Current status by plugin

  • CMIP6 (wcrp_cmip6): uses the split-TOML layout under plugins/cmip6/config/wcrp/ (plus mappings/).
  • CMIP7 (wcrp_cmip7): uses the split-TOML layout under plugins/cmip7/config/wcrp/.
  • CORDEX-CMIP6 (wcrp_cordex_cmip6): for now uses the legacy single-file configuration (e.g. wcrp_config.toml + mapping_variables.toml).
    This will be migrated to the same split-TOML structure as CMIP6/CMIP7.
  • Data plugin (wcrp_data): kept as a single TOML configuration for now (data plausibility focused), to remain lightweight and independent from project-specific split trees.