Deploy to CANFAR in 5 Steps
CANFAR Orchestration for Managed Environment Transfers (COMET) is a guided wizard that connects your GitHub or GitLab repository to CANFAR. It can tailor template files, estimate or generate unit tests, and still lets you review every file before anything is committed.
How It Works
Complete these steps once per repository. After that, deployments happen automatically on every push.
- Login — Connect GitHub and/or GitLab and sign in to CANFAR through CADC OIDC. COMET keeps each browser session separate, derives delegated ARC credentials, and prepares the PEM needed for later secrets or variables.
- Repository — Select or create a repo, choose a branch, choose Tooling or Container, apply a template if needed, optionally use Quick Filter, AI Fit, coverage estimation, or AI test generation, then review every file COMET will commit.
- CANFAR — Select your deployment destination: a CANFAR folder for Tooling or a Harbor project/repository for Container.
- Deploy — Confirm the destination, branch, secrets/variables, CI status, rollback preference, and final commit plan, then start the setup.
- Finish — COMET creates any needed branch, commits the files, triggers the workflow, and shows links, logs, and any error summary. Future pushes to that branch deploy automatically.
Two Deployment Modes
Choose the model that fits your deliverable.
Tooling
Rsync your repository to a CANFAR folder. Best for scripts, notebooks, and pipelines.
Container
Build and push container images to Harbor. Best for packaged applications and services.
Why Use COMET?
Use the same wizard for GitHub Actions or GitLab CI/CD, including new-branch creation and provider-specific secrets or variables.
Start from None, CanDIAmazing, or Generic templates, then use Quick Filter or AI Fit to apply only the features your repo actually needs.
Estimate current coverage, generate missing tests, and keep existing tests intact while COMET updates the workflow coverage target.
Secrets and variables stay in your Git provider, while optional custom AI credentials remain in your browser session only.
Every deployment is tied to a commit SHA with full logs in GitHub Actions or GitLab pipelines.
Use File Overview, All/New toggles, folder view, and inline editing to inspect both generated files and existing repo files before committing.
Deploy from existing branches or create a new one on the fly; for new branches, COMET can preview the base branch files you are building from.
When COMET meets an existing file, you can compare versions, keep original content, keep the new version, or merge changes before anything is committed.
Use the same setup flow to wire a tooling repo to a CANFAR directory or a container repo to a Harbor image destination, without switching tools.
Who It's For
COMET is built for astronomers and researchers working with CANFAR who want to:
- Automate code deployment without learning CI/CD from scratch
- Keep analysis scripts and pipelines in version control
- Collaborate with team members using standard GitHub or GitLab workflows
- Maintain audit trails of what code is running on shared infrastructure
COMET is part of the CanDIAPL project, a CFI-funded initiative enabling data-intensive astrophysics at petabyte scale.
Quick Links
- Documentation — Full setup guide, secrets reference, and troubleshooting
- About CanDIAPL — The project behind COMET
- CanDIAPL website — Official project site
- CanDIAmazing template repo — Batteries-included Python package starter
- CANFAR Docs — Official CANFAR platform documentation
- Contact — Get help or report issues