v0.7.0 — Lite-by-default install + install pathway cards + rebrand

The lite-flip is here. pip install quantum-metal is now small, fast, and orchestration-friendly — heavy backends (PySide6, qdarkstyle, pyaedt, pyEPR-quantum, gmsh) move out of base into opt-in extras ([gui] / [ansys] / [fem] / [full]). The deprecation cycle from v0.6.2 completes; the FutureWarning becomes truth.

What to do when upgrading from v0.6.x

| Your workflow | Install command | |---|---| | 🪶 Lite — designs + qm.view() + GDS + pure-Python analyses | pip install quantum-metal | | 🖥️ MetalGUI desktop app | pip install "quantum-metal[gui]" | | 🧲 HFSS / Q3D simulation (needs Ansys AEDT license) | pip install "quantum-metal[ansys]" | | 🔺 gmsh / Elmer FEM (open-source) | pip install "quantum-metal[fem]" | | 📦 Everything (v0.6.x compatibility) | pip install "quantum-metal[full]" |

Extras compose: pip install "quantum-metal[gui,ansys]". Full migration recipes per persona live in docs/migration-to-v0.7.0.rst.

Headlines

🪶 Lite-by-default install

• [project.dependencies] slimmed from ~18 packages to 13 core deps
• Base install drops from ~1 GB to a few dozen MB
• Designs, components, GDS export, headless qm.view(), pure-Python analyses all work on the base install
• Heavy backends are real opt-in extras with clear ImportError: pip install 'quantum-metal[X]' messages at use time

🧮 Vendored pyEPR's Josephson math (#1078)

• Convert.Ic_from_Lj / Convert.Ej_from_Lj / Convert.Ec_from_Cs now live in qiskit_metal.analyses.quantization.constants
• LOManalysis, extract_transmon_coupled_Noscillator, and LOM-core analyses no longer carry a runtime pyEPR dependency
• 11 new explicit physics-validation tests (test_quantization_constants.py) lock the meaning of every constant against textbook values — would have caught a near-miss where phi0 almost got redefined as the full flux quantum instead of the reduced one

🎴 Install-pathway UX

• README: 5-card install grid + feature matrix near the top
• docs/installation.rst: matching Sphinx grid-item-card layout with the same feature matrix
• docs/index.rst: install-pathway pointer + import-rename heads-up callout
• Persona-targeted migration recipes: GUI user / HFSS user / FEM user / AI orchestrator

🔄 Rebrand pass — Qiskit Metal → Quantum Metal

• README's "Transition Notice" section refreshed to reflect actual current state (rebrand mostly complete, repo rename pending, import-path rename scheduled)
• CONTRIBUTING.md CLA URL fixed (was the stale Qiskit/qiskit org)
• Various "Qiskit Metal" → "Quantum Metal" text updates in user-visible places

🔮 Upcoming-breaking-change heads-up: import path rename

A future major release (target v0.8 or v1.0) will rename the Python import path from qiskit_metal to quantum_metal to match the PyPI package name. import qiskit_metal now raises a FutureWarning advertising this. Plan to update your imports ahead of that release. Silence with QISKIT_METAL_SUPPRESS_RENAME_WARNING=1.

CI improvements

• New tests-extras matrix exercises [gui], [ansys], [fem] install pathways independently — closes a real coverage gap (previously only "full" and "lite" were validated)
• tests-lite cleaned up — drops the now-obsolete pyEPR-quantum install (vendored math removed the need)
• Docs CI on PRs — docs.yml now triggers on pull_request: (build-only; deploy stays push-to-main)
• Docs CI lite + autodoc mocks — docs venv installs lite only, heavies mocked via sphinx.ext.autodoc.mock._MockModule in conf.py; no more libEGL / native-lib drama on the runner

Notable rolled-in improvements (from #1084 v0.6.3 work merged into this release)

• GDS renderer bug fixes: make_cheese.py flatten, ref.ref_cell → ref.cell gdstk rename
• Headless viewer fix: plt.close() no longer destroys caller-supplied figures
• 23 new integration tests: GDS export + viewer/about
• Tutorial refresh: 5 notebooks in tutorials/3 Renderers/ with prerequisites, comparison tables, exact entry-point examples
• gmsh 4.15.0 → 4.15.2 in the lockfile

Compatibility matrix

| Python | Ubuntu 24.04 | macOS 15 | Windows 2025 | |---|---|---|---| | 3.10 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | 3.11 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | | 3.12 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |

Test count: 481 passing (up from 458 in v0.6.2; +23 from #1084's GDS/viewer integration tests).

Known issues

• HFSS / Q3D runtime path not validated in CI (no AEDT license). The renderer lazification in #1078 shipped on best-effort review. If you hit a regression on a real HFSS workflow, see issue #1079 for the validation checklist and the one-line revert path.
• Several pre-existing tutorial title-style and image-not-readable warnings surface in the docs build — non-blocking, queued for a separate tutorial-hygiene PR.

Contributors

Thanks to @zlatko-minev for #1084 (GDS fixes + headless viewer + tutorial refresh + the v0.6.3 prep that landed alongside this release), and to @PositroniumJS (earlier ruff sweep #1070) plus the broader QDC community for shaping the lite-by-default direction.

Next: see ROADMAP.md for the AI-orchestration profile (v0.7.x–v0.8.0), the open FEM stack research arc (gmsh + Elmer + AWS Palace), and the upcoming qiskit_metal → quantum_metal import-path rename for the next major release.

What's Changed

• v0.7.0: lite-by-default + install cards + rebrand + import-rename heads-up by @zlatko-minev in https://github.com/qiskit-community/qiskit-metal/pull/1083

Full Changelog: https://github.com/qiskit-community/qiskit-metal/compare/v0.6.3...v0.7.0