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deprecating-api

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Use when deprecating a public Python API or `verdi` CLI command in aiida-core.

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Deprecating API in aiida-core

Public API is anything importable from a second-level package (from aiida.orm import ..., from aiida.engine import ...). Public API must go through a deprecation cycle before removal. Data created with older AiiDA versions is guaranteed to work with newer versions (database migrations are applied automatically), so backwards compatibility matters.

Python API

Use the warn_deprecation helper, which handles stacklevel=2 and respects the user's deprecation-visibility config:

from aiida.common.warnings import warn_deprecation

def old_function(x):
    warn_deprecation('`old_function` is deprecated, use `new_function` instead.', version=3)
    return new_function(x)

Add a .. deprecated:: note to the docstring with replacement guidance:

def old_function(x):
    """Do the thing.

    .. deprecated:: 2.7
       Use :func:`new_function` instead. Will be removed in 3.0.
    """

CLI commands

Use @decorators.deprecated_command() from aiida.cmdline.utils.decorators:

from aiida.cmdline.utils import decorators

@verdi_group.command('old-command')
@decorators.deprecated_command('Use `verdi new-command` instead.')
def old_command():
    ...

Removal timeline

  • Minor release: add the deprecation warning, update docstrings and user-facing docs.
  • Next major release: remove the deprecated API.
  • Users can surface all pending deprecation warnings by setting AIIDA_WARN_v3=1.

Relevant source

  • Warning classes: src/aiida/common/warnings.py
  • CLI deprecation decorator: src/aiida/cmdline/utils/decorators.py