Skip to content

Documentation corrections found during a fresh-user run-through (README + --help) #435

Description

@matthewholman

Caught while following the README as a brand-new user:

  • layup --help tagline reads "Awesome layup survey simulator suite" — layup is an orbit-fitting package; "survey simulator" is Sorcha. Misleading at the very first command.
  • README Setup says git submodule update --init fetches "assist, eigen, and rebound"; the actual submodules are eigen and autodiff (assist/rebound are pip dependencies).
  • README Quickstart calls layup bootstrap "a few hundred MB"; it is actually ~1.5 GB. Update the figure and note the disk requirement.
  • layup --help lists 10 verbs, but log is missing from the "most common verbs" blurb (and external docs say "11"). Reconcile to 10 and document (or hide) log.
  • The Use the Python API section points to docs/notebooks/orbit_fitting_api.ipynb but doesn't mention that Jupyter is required — a base pip install -e . has no jupyter (it is in the [dev] extra), so a new user hits command not found: jupyter. Tell readers to pip install -e ".[dev]".
  • Typo: unpack help says "covarience" -> "covariance". Minor: demo prepare suggests -o demo_orbitfit_output while the Quickstart uses -o my_orbit; make them consistent.

Found during a clean-room, fresh-user install + test run-through (fresh venv + --recursive clone, following the README Quickstart), 2026-07-10.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    documentationImprovements or additions to documentation

    Type

    No type

    Fields

    No fields configured for issues without a type.

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions