pyRTC First Release

1.0.0 - 2026-03-07

First stable public release of pyrtcao.

This release establishes the initial supported package, CLI, documentation, and
CI/release surface for the 1.0.x line. The published distribution name is
pyrtcao, the import name remains pyRTC, and the user-facing project name is
pyrtc.

Added

• PyPI distribution packaging as pyrtcao while preserving import pyRTC.
• Stable console-script entry points with the pyrtc-* prefix:
  pyrtc-view, pyrtc-view-launch-all, pyrtc-shm-monitor,
  pyrtc-clear-shms, pyrtc-measure-latency, pyrtc-core-bench, and
  pyrtc-ao-loop-bench.
• Canonical no-hardware onboarding workflow in examples/synthetic_shwfs/.
• Shared logging system in pyRTC.logging_utils covering scripts, benchmarks,
  launchers, component base classes, and key hardware/control-plane paths.
• Maintainer-facing built-wheel validation helper at
  python pyRTC/scripts/validate_dist_install.py --dist-dir dist.
• Cross-platform smoke workflows for macOS and Windows plus Python-versioned
  Linux install/test coverage for Python 3.9 through 3.13.
• Docs-build validation in CI and repository-level Read the Docs
  configuration via .readthedocs.yaml.
• Closed-loop synthetic AO benchmark coverage and README-facing benchmark
  artifacts for CPU and GPU comparisons.
• Focused regression coverage for viewer behavior, package public API,
  synthetic onboarding, logging helpers, hardware adapter shims, benchmark
  entry points, and release/install validation.
• Dedicated tests for base-class lifecycle behavior, telemetry error paths,
  ScienceCamera branches, and package-install validation.

Changed

• README and Sphinx docs were substantially rewritten around installation,
  architecture, examples, troubleshooting, support posture, and maintainer
  workflow.
• Documentation now has a clear getting-started path, architecture guide,
  developer guide, component pages, and updated example documentation.
• Benchmark tooling was upgraded from a narrow kernel-oriented view to include
  synthetic closed-loop AO reporting and README-ready markdown table
  generation.
• Public package metadata was consolidated in pyproject.toml with stable
  classifiers, extras, URLs, Python support declarations, and console scripts.
• Support posture was tightened and documented as Linux-first for 1.0.x,
  with macOS and Windows treated as smoke-tested rather than primary deployment
  targets.
• Component, launcher, and hardware control-plane code now reports state
  changes and failures more consistently through the shared logger.
• Viewer and related SHM utilities were updated to use concrete submodule
  imports rather than fragile package-root re-export imports in order to remain
  robust when pyRTC is resolved as a namespace package.
• API-reference and component docs were reorganized to remove duplicate Sphinx
  object registrations and produce a clean docs build.

Fixed

• Viewer/CLI import failures that occurred when running from outside the repo
  root or when pyRTC was resolved as a namespace package.
• Python 3.9 compatibility issues caused by bare PEP 604 union annotations at
  import time in logging and benchmark modules.
• Missing benchmark-table kernel mappings and multiple Ruff/lint regressions in
  scripts and tests.
• Headless/non-Qt test collection failures caused by eager Qt backend imports
  in the viewer module.
• Documentation import examples that incorrectly recommended
  from pyRTC import ... patterns for classes and launch helpers.
• Duplicate Sphinx autodoc warnings caused by repeated object indexing across
  component pages and the API reference.
• Test-suite warning noise from pytest helper imports and third-party startup
  warnings so the suite runs cleanly.

Testing

• Full repository test coverage for the tracked coverage set now exceeds the
  release gate, reaching 87.53% at release time.
• pyRTC.Modulator, pyRTC.Optimizer, pyRTC.Telemetry, and
  pyRTC.pyRTCComponent now have 100% coverage in the tracked release suite.
• pyRTC.ScienceCamera coverage was expanded materially as part of release
  stabilization.
• Built-wheel installation, CLI imports, docs builds, performance smoke tests,
  and synthetic system flows are all exercised in the release-facing workflow
  set.

Notes

• Linux is the primary validated platform for the 1.0.x line.
• Python 3.9 through 3.13 are covered by the release CI matrix.
• GPU and hardware-specific paths should still be validated in the target
  environment before operational use.
• Hardware adapters in pyRTC.hardware should be treated as reference
  integrations and starting points, not guarantees of site-specific SDK
  compatibility.