ATLAS Software Documentation

Here you can find tutorials and guides for using the software of the ATLAS Experiment at CERN. These pages contain public structured software documentation, and exist in addition to the (internal) Computing TWiki.

New to ATLAS?
This web page covers software but we also have pages for distributed computing, databases and metadata, as well as the internal Computing TWiki with many more useful links.

New to ATLAS Software?
Have you just joined ATLAS and want to know more about the software? These links will help you to get started:

• ATLAS software should be open-source by default, with a permissive licence (Apache 2 is preferred), and include the ATLAS copright statement. ATLAS members can read the full policy here.
• Have a look at the Introduction to Athena
• Read about Athena releases
• Run the AthenaExamples to familiarise yourself with Athena
• Subscribe to the ATLAS software e-group [ATLAS members only]

If you would like some more general introductions to software development for research, take a look at the High Energy Physics Software Foundation training pages.

Need help getting started with physics analysis software?
Follow the complete Analysis Software Tutorial, or jump directly to the introduction of the Common CP Algorithms.

Or are you here to analyse the ATLAS open data?
If so, go to the ATLAS Open Data portal.

Starting work on ATLAS software?
Are you beginning an ATLAS software task? Read the introductory links above and then:

• Read about Athena nightly builds
• Follow the Git workflow documentation

Experienced developer?
These links may be helpful:

• Athena GitLab repository
• Athena on LXR
• Doxygen pages
• Releases
• Nightly build status [internal]
• Nightly runtime tests (ART) status [internal]
• Nightly build comparison tool
• ATLAS C++ coding guidelines
• ATLAS Distributed Computing
• Creating a personal Virtual Machine

Questions or problems?

• Look at the Getting Help page for guidance on where to post a question, or see the Issue Reporting page.
• For comments and suggestions on this documentation, use the issue tracker or follow the contribution guide to improve the documentation yourself.