Contributing

Thanks for helping improve Awesome Earth Observation Instruments.

This catalogue is intended to be useful to Earth Observation practitioners, software developers, researchers, and general users who need reliable instrument metadata. Contributions should keep the catalogue machine-readable, traceable, and easy to understand.

What You Can Contribute

• New instrument records in src/instruments/.
• Spectral band CSV files in src/bands/.
• Spectral response function CSV files in src/srf/.
• Schema improvements in schema/.
• Data access metadata for supported providers.
• Cross-links to trusted external catalogues.

Instrument Records

Add one YAML file per instrument in src/instruments/. Use existing files as templates and validate the record before opening a pull request. You can also check the full schema and extensions in schema/core/ and schema/extensions/. Tables summarising the full schema can be found in SCHEMA.md.

Each instrument should include:

• Stable instrument id.
• Full name and acronym.
• Instrument type and platform_type.
• Platform, operator, lifecycle status, and availability.
• References and data links.
• Relevant extension blocks, especially spectral metadata when available.

Prefer authoritative sources such as mission pages, technical handbooks, scientific papers, provider catalogues, and official data access documentation.

Spectral Data

If bands are provided as a CSV file, place it in src/bands/ and reference the filename from the instrument YAML. If an SRF CSV is available, place it in src/srf/ and reference it through spectral_response_function.

The catalogue generator materializes these CSV files into catalogue.json, so do not manually edit transformed spectral data in the generated catalogue.

Generated Files

Do not manually edit generated files unless you are only prototyping a template. Update the source data or generator instead.

Generated files include:

• catalogue/catalogue.json
• README.md
• SCHEMA.md
• docs/schema.md
• docs/contributing.md
• docs/instruments/*.md
• docs/.vitepress/data/*.json

Local Checks

Use the project environment and run:

python src/code/catalogue.py
python src/code/readme.py
python src/code/vitepress.py
python -m pytest tests

If your change affects the website, also run the VitePress build in an environment with Node.js available:

npm run docs:build

Pull Request Checklist

• The source YAML/CSV files are valid.
• Generated outputs have been updated when needed.
• Tests pass.
• New metadata is supported by references or provider documentation.
• The contribution avoids duplicating information already derived by generators.