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Plans

Redsun builds on the Bluesky plan system. A plan is a generator function that yields Msg objects; the RunEngine consumes them and drives hardware.

Redsun adds two layers on top:

  • continous plans - plans that run in a loop, with optional pause/resume and in-flight user actions.
  • PlanSpec - a structured description of a plan's signature, used by the view layer to build a parameter form automatically.

Continuous plans

Mark a plan as continuous with the @continous decorator:

from redsun.engine.actions import continous, Action
from bluesky.utils import MsgGenerator


@continous(togglable=True, pausable=True)
def live_scan(detectors: Sequence[DetectorProtocol]) -> MsgGenerator[None]:
    while True:
        yield from bps.trigger_and_read(detectors)

The decorator stamps __togglable__ and __pausable__ onto the function. create_plan_spec reads these to configure the run/pause buttons in the UI.

In-flight actions

An Action is a user-triggered side effect that can fire while the plan runs. Declare one as a parameter default:

from redsun.engine.actions import Action

snap_action = Action(name="snap", description="Capture a single frame")


@continous
def live_view(
    camera: CameraProtocol,
    snap: Action = snap_action,
) -> MsgGenerator[None]:
    while True:
        yield from read_while_waiting([camera], snap_action.event_map)
        yield from bps.trigger_and_read([camera])

The view renders snap as a button. When clicked, the SRLatch inside snap_action is set, unblocking wait_for_actions inside read_while_waiting.

Togglable actions (represented as toggle buttons) use togglable=True:

Action(
    name="led",
    description="Toggle illumination",
    togglable=True,
    toggle_states=("On", "Off"),
)

SRLatch

SRLatch is the synchronisation primitive behind Action. It wraps two asyncio.Event objects and supports waiting for either state:

latch = SRLatch()

# in a coroutine:
await latch.wait_for_set()  # blocks until set()
await latch.wait_for_reset()  # blocks until reset()

The RunEngine handles wait_for_actions messages by running one wait_for_set (or wait_for_reset) task per latch and returning the first that completes.


Plan specification

create_plan_spec inspects a plan's signature and returns a PlanSpec:

from redsun.presenter.plan_spec import create_plan_spec

spec = create_plan_spec(my_plan, devices={"stage": motor, "cam": camera})

Each parameter becomes a ParamDescription with:

Field Meaning
annotation stripped type (no Annotated wrapper)
choices string labels for Literal or device params
multiselect True for Sequence[...] / *args device parameters
device_proto the device class or runtime-checkable protocol for device params
actions Action metadata if the default is an Action

Annotation dispatch

The dispatch is table-driven. Annotations are mapped to ParamDescription fields in this priority order:

  1. Literal["a", "b"] -> choices=["a", "b"]
  2. Sequence[MyDevice] -> multi-select, choices=<matching device names>
  3. *args: MyDevice (VAR_POSITIONAL) -> multi-select
  4. MyDevice (bare protocol) -> single-select
  5. Everything else -> delegated to magicgui

Plans with required parameters that fall through to step 5 and are not magicgui-resolvable raise UnresolvableAnnotationError and are skipped.

Collecting and resolving arguments

Once the user fills in the form, the presenter calls two functions to turn widget values into a plan call:

from redsun.presenter.plan_spec import collect_arguments, resolve_arguments

# 1. Resolve: string device names -> live device instances
resolved = resolve_arguments(spec, widget_values, devices)

# 2. Collect: build (args, kwargs) matching the plan signature
args, kwargs = collect_arguments(spec, resolved)

# 3. Run
engine(my_plan(*args, **kwargs))

Plan stubs

redsun.engine.plan_stubs provides stubs that compose inside larger plans.

Action flow-control stubs

import redsun.engine.plan_stubs as rps

# block until any latch in the map changes state, polling at `timeout`
name, latch = yield from rps.wait_for_actions(action.event_map, timeout=0.016)

Descriptor stubs

import redsun.engine.plan_stubs as rps

# gather descriptors from Readable / Collectable devices inside a plan
descriptor = yield from rps.describe(readable)
descriptors = yield from rps.describe_collect(collectable)

See also