The Heliophysics Software Search Interface

Current search capabilities for Heliophysics science software significantly lack coverage across programming languages, interoperability with generic capabilities (e.g., Google), science-specific features, and interlinking with other Heliophysics resources. 

The Heliophysics Software Search Interface (HSSI) is an open-source NASA HPOSS-funded effort to address these issues and support flourishing scientific communities through advancing Heliophysics software discovery, findability, accessibility, citability, and searchability. After several months, we have created a landing page to search for science software in Heliophysics, as well as a new metadata structure that is tailored to Heliophysics specific needs and aligned with international cross-science standards. The landing page for the software search design is predominantly built on NASA’s Exoplanet Modeling and Analysis Center (EMAC; https://emac.gsfc.nasa.gov/) with a RestAPI. The metadata structure aligns with Schema.org, Google’s Rich Results tool, and CodeMeta while still providing the flexibility needed for Heliophysics-specific resource interlinking and search filtering.  

The project is reaching its initial year of completion, with a minimum viable product already in place (https://hssi.hsdcloud.org/). Community input has been sourced at every opportunity, including DASH 2024, PyHC bi-annual meetings and telecons, as well as usability testing. The website will include a submission form with metadata auto-extraction features and a capable search interface. Future updates are planned to fully complete the HSSI overall vision (e.g., larger efforts to include non-PyHC software). 

This submission showcases HSSI’s current status and remaining work, plus future work, if further funded.