System Setup & Dependencies

1. Supported Platforms

Operating systems: macOS, Linux, Windows 10/11 (WSL recommended on Windows).
Python: 3.10 – 3.13 (project currently tested with 3.13.7 via Homebrew and uv).
Hardware: CPU-only; BP workloads scale with core count. Memory requirements depend on factor graph size (expect several hundred MB for dense graphs with 50+ variables).

2. Core Dependencies

Defined in pyproject.toml under [project.dependencies]:

Package	Purpose
`networkx`	Factor graph manipulation and diameter calculations.
`numpy`, `scipy`	Numerical operations for message updates and cost computation.
`matplotlib`	Plotting cost trajectories and visual analytics.
`dash`, `dash_cytoscape`, `seaborn`, `pandas`	Optional dashboards and analysis tooling.
`psutil`, `colorlog`	Monitoring and structured logging.

Development extras (.[dev]) include pytest, pytest-cov, black, mypy, pre-commit, jupyter, etc.

3. Environment Bootstrapping

Option A – Recommended: `uv`

# From repository root
uv sync
uv run python -m pip check  # optional verification

uv creates a .venv folder by default and resolves dependency locks via uv.lock.

Option B – Standard virtualenv + pip

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # .venv\Scripts\activate on Windows
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install -e .[dev]
pre-commit install

Option C – Conda

conda create -n propflow python=3.11
conda activate propflow
pip install -e .[dev]

4. Verifying Installation

Activate the environment.
Run python -c "import propflow; print(propflow.__version__)" to confirm package import.
Execute python examples/minsum_basic.py to ensure engines and graph builders are functional.
Optionally run pytest -q to validate the suite (expect some longer runtimes for heavy graph tests).

5. External Services & Data

No external services are required. Factor graphs are generated on the fly or loaded from pickled artefacts. For reproducibility, ensure deterministic seeds are configured in configs or snapshot recorders.

6. File System Expectations

Write access to configs/logs/ (default log directory) and optional results/ directories for export.
docs/handbook/ houses this deployment guide; no runtime writes expected.
Ensure large outputs (plots, CSVs) are excluded from version control or placed under a dedicated results/ directory.

With an environment ready, proceed to Running Simulations & Tools to launch jobs and capture artefacts.