APEs: Astropy Proposals for Enhancement

APEs are documents to address non-trivial enhancements that require discussion and thought beyond a single Pull Request. This is intended to mirror the long-standing PEP (Python Enhancement Proposal) process, but generally not quite as formally. Please consult APE Purpose and Process for full details.

APEs

#	Title	Date (last revised)	Status	DOI
0	The Astropy Project Governance Charter	2021-Feb-19	Accepted
1	APE Purpose and Process	2025-Oct-27	Accepted
2	Astropy Release Cycle and Version Numbering	2013-Dec-11	Accepted
3	Configuration	2013-Dec-10	Accepted
4	Astropy Setup Helpers	2014-Jun-28	Accepted
5	Coordinates Subpackage Plan	2014-Jan-22	Accepted
6	Enhanced Character Separated Values table format	2015-Jan-26	Accepted
7	NDData Plan	2014-Dec-17	Accepted
8	Astropy Community Code of Conduct	2025-Oct-06	Superseded
9	Timeseries object for Astropy	2023-Oct-20	Accepted
10	Roadmap for Python 3-only support	2016-Aug-22	Accepted
12	Using Cookiecutter for the package-template	2017-Mar-28	Accepted
13	Vision for Astropy Spectroscopic Tools	2017-Dec-12	Accepted
14	A shared Python interface for World Coordinate Systems	2018-Nov-09	Accepted
15	An Updated Model for the Affiliated Package Ecosystem	2018-May-14	Accepted
17	A roadmap for package infrastructure without astropy-helpers	2019-Dec-12	Accepted
18	Adopt NEP 29 for CPython and Numpy Version Support	2024-Jul-12	Accepted
19	Distributing Astropy Project Funding	2022-Feb-28	Accepted
20	Formatting Code with Black	2022-Sep-23	Accepted
21	Ending Long Term Support Releases	2023-May-31	Accepted
22	Astropy Affiliated Packages with pyOpenSci	2024-Jan-29	Accepted

Proposing a new APE

Please read the "Submitting an APE" section in APE Purpose and Process.

Tips:

• Don't forget to check the open PRs when finding the next free number for your APE.
• For your PR description, usually it's the easiest to paste in the abstract, and link to other existing GitHub Issues or PRs, if applicable.

Finalizing APEs

Please read the "APE Review" section in APE Purpose and Process.

If the APE was accepted, here are the archiving (Zenodo) instructions for the Coordination Committee:

1. Upload the APE to Zenodo to give it a DOI. Log into the astropy team Zenodo account (not your personal account), go to https://zenodo.org/deposit/new, upload the RST file, and set the fields to the following:

   Zenodo field	Set to
   Communities	The Astropy Project
   Upload type	Publication
   Publication type	Technical note
   Publication Date	The date-last-revised of the APE (which should be the same as the accepted date for new APEs)
   Title	Astropy Proposal for Enhancement <number>: <title> (APE <number>)
   Authors	The APE authors (directly from the APE text, but with ORCIDs if possible)
   Description	The APE abstract (copy/paste the rendered HTML from GitHub)
   License	CC-Attribution (default)
   Related/alternate identifiers	GitHub link to the APE file at the specific merge commit (e.g. https://github.com/astropy/astropy-APEs/blob/42951733ac42c0ea178d8df30705274a43c93091/APE1.rst) as "is supplemented by this upload". If this is a revised version, this should be the URL of the commit where the APE was revised.

2. Get the source for the DOI badge from the newly-created Zenodo record page by clicking on the DOI badge on the right side of the page and copying the reStructuredText source. You will need to update that with the "all versions" DOI number, which you can see under the "versions" section of Zenodo. (It is typically the first version minus 1.)

3. (This step can be done directly on main or as a PR, as you prefer.) Edit README.rst to add the DOI link from the previous step to the relevant row for the APE in the "APEs" table. Preview the update and test the link to make sure they are all correct. Then, commit the change.

Updating APEs

Please read the "Modifications to an existing APE" section in APE Purpose and Process.

If applicable, the Zenodo entry needs to be updated with a new version of the APE (not a completely new Zenodo entry), by using the "New version" button and then filling out the forms as described in "Finalizing APEs" section above.