pz-rail 0.97.3

 [](https://codecov.io/gh/LSSTDESC/RAIL)

# RAIL: Redshift Assessment Infrastructure Layers

RAIL’s purpose is to be the infrastructure enabling the PZ WG Deliverables in [the LSST-DESC Science Roadmap (see Sec. 5.18)](https://lsstdesc.org/assets/pdf/docs/DESC_SRM_latest.pdf), aiming to guide the selection and implementation of redshift estimators in DESC pipelines. RAIL differs from previous plans for PZ pipeline infrastructure in that it is broken into stages, each corresponding to a manageable unit of infrastructure advancement, a specific question to answer with that code, and a guaranteed publication opportunity. RAIL uses [qp](https://github.com/LSSTDESC/qp) as a back-end for handling univariate probability density functions (PDFs) such as photo-z posteriors or n(z) samples.

A more detailed overview is available in the [Overview Section](https://lsstdescrail.readthedocs.io/en/latest/source/overview.html) of the RAIL Read The Docs page.

## Installation

Installation instructions are available on the [Installation section](https://lsstdescrail.readthedocs.io/en/latest/source/installation.html) of the [RAIL Read The Docs page](https://lsstdescrail.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

## Contributing

If interested in contributing to RAIL see the [Contributing section](https://lsstdescrail.readthedocs.io/en/latest/source/contributing.html) of the RAIL Read The Docs page.

## Future Plans

Potential extensions of the RAIL package are summarized in the [Future Plans section](https://lsstdescrail.readthedocs.io/en/latest/source/futureplans.html) of the RAIL Read The Docs page.

## Citing RAIL

This code, while public on GitHub, has not yet been released by DESC and is still under active development. Our release of v1.0 will be accompanied by a journal paper describing the development and validation of RAIL.

If you make use of the ideas or software here, please cite this repository https://github.com/LSSTDESC/RAIL. You are welcome to re-use the code, which is open source and available under terms consistent with our [LICENSE](https://github.com/LSSTDESC/RAIL/blob/main/LICENSE) [(BSD 3-Clause)](https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause).

External contributors and DESC members wishing to use RAIL for non-DESC projects should consult with the Photometric Redshifts (PZ) Working Group conveners, ideally before the work has started, but definitely before any publication or posting of the work to the arXiv.

### Citing specific codes within RAIL

Several of the codes included within the RAIL framework, e.g. BPZ, Delight, and FlexZBoost, are pre-existing codes that have been included in RAIL. If you use those specific codes you should also cite the appropriate papers for each code used. A list of such codes is included in the [Citing RAIL](https://lsstdescrail.readthedocs.io/en/latest/source/citing.html) section of the Read The Docs page.