New Agent: tauHK by merny93 · Pull Request #961 · simonsobs/socs

merny93 · 2025-12-15T22:36:57Z

This PR aims to integrate the tauHK cryogenic housekeeping instrumentation into the ocs framework for use on the LAT.

Description

The tauHK instrument interfaces with a host computer over ethernet and communicates with a daemon process. The code in this PR is a thin wrapper on top of the daemon.

Data and commands are sent over a UDP socket serialized using protobuf. A one time code-gen step is required to generate all the python protobuf definitions such that the agent can communicate with the daemon. Resulting protobuf definitions files are kept in the pb2/ directory but not tracked in git.

This agent spawns the daemon process using the subprocess module and pushes logs to an ocs feed. The compiled binary is supplied but not tracked in git.

Motivation and Context

tauHK will be installed on site during the ASO upgrades. This code will be deployed on amun .

How Has This Been Tested?

This agent code has been tested on a development machine at Princeton. The hardware and software were tested end-to-end along with ocs-web integration.

Types of changes

Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to not work as expected)

Checklist:

My code follows the code style of this project.
My change requires a change to the documentation.
I have updated the documentation accordingly.

…rocess call for running the agent

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BrianJKoopman

Sorry this took a while to get to, but here's a first pass at a review. It'd be great to have the requested documentation for the dependencies.

BrianJKoopman · 2026-01-30T20:39:31Z

+# The linter may tell you that these are unused but they are needed for the protobuf validation
+# The linter may tell you that these are unused but they are needed for the protobuf validation
+from pb2 import meta_pb2, validate_pb2
+from pb2.system_pb2 import HKdata, HKsystem
+from protoc_gen_validate.validator import ValidationFailed, validate_all


Remove the duplicate comment, and add # noqa: 401 to the end of the lines that giving import unused errors in flake8 to ignore them, which are:

socs/agents/tauhk/agent.py:29:1: F401 'copy.deepcopy' imported but unused socs/agents/tauhk/agent.py:30:1: F401 'datetime.datetime' imported but unused socs/agents/tauhk/agent.py:36:1: F401 'ocs.ocs_feed' imported but unused socs/agents/tauhk/agent.py:39:1: F401 'pb2.meta_pb2' imported but unused socs/agents/tauhk/agent.py:39:1: F401 'pb2.validate_pb2' imported but unused socs/agents/tauhk/agent.py:41:1: F401 'protoc_gen_validate.validator.ValidationFailed' imported but unused

BrianJKoopman · 2026-01-30T20:43:41Z

This file is largely incomplete. There's a complete example in the ocs docs. You can also see any other agent's reference page for an example. Important things missing:

The argparse block, which automatically displays arguments for the agent

A description of dependencies for running this agent (I know we've discussed this offline, but just for the record here). This should describe, or otherwise link to, instructions for installing the required dependencies.

Configuration file examples

"Agent API" section

Could you also add it to the index (in alphabetical order)?

I think the first link may be incorrect. Was it supposed to point to: https://flake8.pycqa.org/en/latest/user/violations.html#in-line-ignoring-errors

Can you provide the link you had in mind please!

Ah, sorry about that, updated in the original post. It's here: https://ocs.readthedocs.io/en/main/developer/agent_references/documentation.html

BrianJKoopman · 2026-01-30T20:49:06Z

+'''
+protoc --python_out=pb2/ -I../protos -I../protos/include ../protos/system.proto ../protos/include/hk.proto ../protos/include/validate.proto ../protos/include/meta.proto
+
+the import in the generated tauhk file is wrong
+to fix it, change the import in the generated file from:
+import blah as blah
+to:
+from . import blah as blah
+
+pb2/include/hk_pb2.py will need to be adjusted as follows:
+from .. import meta_pb2 as meta__pb2
+from google.protobuf import empty_pb2 as google_dot_protobuf_dot_empty__pb2
+from .. import validate_pb2 as validate__pb2
+from google.protobuf import descriptor_pb2 as google_dot_protobuf_dot_descriptor__pb2
+
+from ..meta_pb2 import *
+
+'''


This would be better in the tauhk.rst file when describing how to install the dependencies.

BrianJKoopman · 2026-01-30T21:06:47Z

Generally, can you wrap your lines to ~80-100 characters? Your editor might have a way to automatically do this. (I still use 80, but recognize that monitors are typically wider these days.)

(I thought this was somewhere in the SO Developer Guide, which we link to from our contributing guide, but I actually can't seem to find it...however that is the convention throughout the repo.)

BrianJKoopman · 2026-01-30T21:12:46Z

+        self.log = agent.log
+        self._take_data = False
+
+        self.command_port = ("127.0.0.1", 3006)


Where self.command_port is passed it typically refers to "send command to the tauHK system". Why is the address the localhost though? Is this just sending the command to another process running locally on this machine?

This is a leading question towards suggesting that this be configurable (a 3006 default is fine) -- since the hardcoded port might not be open on the host.

Yes, this is to communicate with the daemon process that is spawned by the agent to communicate with the hardware. It runs on the same computer as the agent. These ports are hardcoded on the daemon side so we can not make this configurable unless the daemon code is also modified.

BrianJKoopman · 2026-02-12T22:36:58Z

+            rtdChannel.logdac sets the excitation range for RTDs from 0(min) to 15(max)
+            rtdChannel.uvolts sets the excitation voltage in microvolts (e.g., 56 for 56uV)
+            diodeChannel.excitation sets the excitation mode for diodes: 0=DC, 1=AC, 2=None


What happens if the values exceed the ranges here? Is that caught on the tauhk side?

There are a couple places where it is confirmed. The set_param function will check the ranges and may error out returning the status to the user.

BrianJKoopman · 2026-02-12T22:45:58Z

+
+        return True, f"Sent {channel_name}.{option_name}={val} successfully."
+
+    def advertise(self, session, params):


The thought here is that a script would check the advertise processes' session.data, find a valid command, then use generic_send to send that command and the desired value?

Is this communicating with the tauHK hardware at all? Where do the available commands come from?

Also, in the running agent on site, this seems very static. When does the available command list change?

The advertise process was added to show to the webocs plugin that we wrote what channels are commandable. The command list lives inside the system_pb2 definitions. It is generated by the protoc compiler from a config file that describes what hardware is connected and provides mappings for channel names, along with some other meta data.

BrianJKoopman · 2026-02-12T22:46:57Z

+
+    @ocs_agent.param('config_file', type=str)
+    def load_config(self, session, params):
+        """load_config()


Show the argument in the method signature:

Suggested change

"""load_config()

"""load_config(config_file)

BrianJKoopman · 2026-02-12T22:54:54Z

+        with socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM) as sock:
+            sock.sendto(message.SerializeToString(), command_port)


Does Protobuf do something to ensure delivery of the command? Else, you might run into instances where your command doesn't make it to the device.

Yep, this is tricky to handle since all communication is UDP. That being said, the hardware streams "state" information back and a user can look at grafana to see if their desired command took effect. For example when adjusting an RTD excitation the user can look at the logdac field for that channel to see if it was changed.

BrianJKoopman · 2026-02-12T22:57:16Z

+
+@lru_cache(maxsize=256)
+def get_spf(channel_name, channel_quantity):
+    '''get_spf(channel_name, channel_quantity)


No need really to override the method signatures in these simple functions. That's only important in the ocs tasks/processes because they contain misleading arguments when rendered in Sphinx otherwise.

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This reverts commit 4c218cb.

This reverts commit 66efc19.

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BrianJKoopman · 2026-02-19T15:30:49Z

Pushed the changes from yesterday that we made to get things working. Slightly messy with the commits, sorry about that. We'll end up squashing in the end anyway.

W.I.P. for rst docs. Need to improve the Configuration file examples

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merny93 and others added 6 commits November 21, 2025 16:16

inital tauHK code

dd00b3d

handling multiple data rates

86971d6

Commented out the commanding as that is being reworked but added subp…

c9a07fb

…rocess call for running the agent

added commanding logic and advertising. Added load from config

026a61f

made field definitions work with ocs-web components

d671dc3

[pre-commit.ci] auto fixes from pre-commit.com hooks

e1663a2

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BrianJKoopman self-requested a review January 6, 2026 19:50

merny93 and others added 5 commits January 12, 2026 19:12

working on amun

1646402

[pre-commit.ci] auto fixes from pre-commit.com hooks

1976725

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added a downsampled feed for influx as full data rate was too much

31f1caf

merge conflict resolution. not sure with what but oh well

13bf0a6

[pre-commit.ci] auto fixes from pre-commit.com hooks

55fa972

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BrianJKoopman requested changes Feb 12, 2026

View reviewed changes

merny93 and others added 9 commits February 18, 2026 19:46

Merge branch 'main' into tauhk

c5c5093

Fix loading/running files from relative paths

1288ae0

Fix pb2 import

4bfd4db

Remove tauhk_logs feed and relog to stdout

66efc19

[pre-commit.ci] auto fixes from pre-commit.com hooks

4c218cb

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Revert "[pre-commit.ci] auto fixes from pre-commit.com hooks"

491228e

This reverts commit 4c218cb.

Revert "Remove tauhk_logs feed and relog to stdout"

5f76691

This reverts commit 66efc19.

Remove tauhk_logs feed and relog to stdout

d9cad29

[pre-commit.ci] auto fixes from pre-commit.com hooks

c866f49

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BrianJKoopman and others added 4 commits February 19, 2026 11:29

Capitalize agent-class

32a420f

Working on rst docs

32a31d2

W.I.P. for rst docs. Need to improve the Configuration file examples

[pre-commit.ci] auto fixes from pre-commit.com hooks

4eb66b9

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Start processes and load excitations on startup

4a82629


		return True, f"Sent {channel_name}.{option_name}={val} successfully."

		def advertise(self, session, params):

		with socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM) as sock:
		sock.sendto(message.SerializeToString(), command_port)

Conversation

merny93 commented Dec 15, 2025

Description

Motivation and Context

How Has This Been Tested?

Types of changes

Checklist:

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BrianJKoopman commented Feb 19, 2026

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BrianJKoopman Jan 30, 2026 •

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