APIS-core is a library that allows you to easily build tools to manage prosopographical data. It is not a ready-made software solution that you just deploy and start working. The typical workflow for starting an APIS project is as follows: set up the project, create an ontology customize the functionalities and views, and finally add your data. This section will guide you through the first step.

Prerequisites

APIS needs Python 3.11+.

Installation

Installation with Docker

This is the recommended way to install APIS on local machines as well as on server infrastructure. For experimenting with APIS you can use the Docker file provided in the APIS core library. It allows you to spin up an APIS instance using the sample-project shipped with the APIS core library. To start it start a terminal and run

• cd path/to/apis-core-rdf to change to the directory where the Docker file is located.
• docker build -t apis . to build the APIS image.
• docker run -p 5000:5000 apis to start the container.

The APIS instance should now be accessible under http://localhost:5000.

Alternatively you can also use the docker image built for our demo-project. To do so run:

• docker run -p 5000:5000 ghcr.io/acdh-oeaw/apis-core-rdf/discworld/main:latest to start the container.

To use the image for local development you can mount your local APIS instance directory into the container, using the following command: To do so you can use the following command:

docker run -p 5000:5000 -v /path/to/your/apis_instance:/app apis

Please note that you might need to install custom dependencies for the APIS instance in your local docker container.

This container uses the Django development server and is not suitable for production use. Please see the next section for deploying APIS in production.

Docker Compose

In production APIS should be used together with an SQL database. The simplest way to set that up is by using Docker Compose. Below is an example of a docker-compose.yml file that sets up an APIS instance with a PostgreSQL database.

version: '3.8'

services:
  app:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    depends_on:
      db:
        condition: service_healthy
        restart: true

    environment: # some settings can be overwritten with env variables
      - DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=apis.settings
      - DJANGO_SECRET_KEY=your_secret_key
      - DJANGO_DEBUG=True
      - DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:postgres@db:5432/postgres
    volumes:
      - ${PWD}/local_apis_instance:/app #mount your local APIS instance to the container if needed
    ports:
      - 5000:5000

  db:
    image: postgres:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - postgres-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: postgres
      POSTGRES_DB: postgres #use other passwords in production
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: postgres
      POSTGRES_EXTENSIONS: pg_trgm
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -d $${POSTGRES_DB} -U $${POSTGRES_USER}"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 3s
      retries: 3

volumes:
  postgres-data:

After docker-compose up you should now have a default APIS installation accessible under http://127.0.0.1:5000.