Preparing a Compatible Replication Package

While SIVACOR does not publish data or replication packages, and deletes completed jobs after a short period of time, it is not a designated secure computing system.

Your replication package should be portable.¶

Code must run without manual intervention, use a single controller script (e.g., main.do or master.R), and avoid hard-coded absolute paths. You can only upload the package, not edit it on the site. It should also not have inconsistently used case-sensitive file or directory names.

All dependencies must either be included or installed automatically.¶

If your code uses libraries or packages, you must ensure that they are installed automatically. We strongly encourage packages that use “environments”, and packages to manage dependencies, such as renv for R.

Your replication package only uses a single software application.¶

Each run of SIVACOR only supports a single software application (e.g., Stata, R, Python), as encapsulated by containers. If your replication requires multiple applications, you will need to configure separate runs. However, your package itself can include the code for multiple applications.

Note

The single-application requirement means you cannot call one application from another (e.g., call R from Stata). It also is highly inconvenient when iterating between applications frequently. It can, however, be used when a small number of actions are needed in one software application, with the bulk in a main application. For instance, if you use Stata for data preparation, but R for all remaining analysis.

Beta functionality: Chaining of runs

SIVACOR has new functionality that allows to chain multiple runs that use different software containers, without having to re-upload intermediate results. There may be limitations. Please contact us with any questions.

Prepare a ZIP or tar.gz file¶

Your replication package must be a single ZIP file or tar.gz file.

Minimal sample code

Sample code for Stata (any version), Scenario B: https://github.com/SIVACOR/sivacor-test-stata
Sample code for Stata (any version), Scenario A (main.do in a non-root directory): https://github.com/SIVACOR/sivacor-test-stata/tree/scenario-A
Sample code for R (set up for R 4.3.1, tested on R 4.5.1): https://github.com/SIVACOR/sivacor-test-r

The next step is to upload your package to SIVACOR.