Installation

This guide will help you install SysIDE Automator. It covers system requirements, installation steps, license activation and updating to new versions.

Minimal Requirements

  • Windows 10+ x64 (For older versions, install Windows UCRT.)

  • macOS Big Sur (11.0+, arm64) or High Sierra (10.13+, x64)

  • x64 Linux distribution with glibc >= 2.31

    Note

    Some Linux distributions like Alpine and Chimera do not include glibc and may not support ways of running applications requiring it.

    Tip

    Check your glibc version by running

    $(cat $(gcc -print-file-name=libc.so) | grep -P '/[^\s]+/libc\.so\.[\w]+' -o)

    in the terminal. You should see an output starting with GNU C Library (GNU libc) stable release version 2.40. or similar.

    Alternatively, if python is installed, run

    python -c "import platform; print(platform.platform())"

    You should see output similar to Linux-6.13.7-3-cachyos-x86_64-with-glibc2.41. If your system has glibc it should be printed at the end.

  • Python 3.12 or newer

Installation Steps

The Automator can be installed in two different ways:

The Automator can be installed with few clicks into a virtual environment using Modeler.

Note

If you haven’t installed SysIDE Modeler yet, please refer to Modeler’s Installation for instructions.

To install the Automator python library:

  1. Open your editor of choice (e.g. Visual Studio Code)

  2. Open any .sysml file in the editor

  3. Click on the SysIDE logo at the top right of your screen and select “Create Python virtual environment with SysIDE Automator”

This will create a virtual environment named .venv in your current workspace (the folder you selected when opening VS Code) with the Automator installed.

This type of installation is for users who are comfortable working with a terminal and virtual environments. It requires Python 3.12+ and we recommend using a virtual environment to avoid package conflicts.

To install the Automator python library:

  1. Open a terminal

  2. Create and activate a virtual environment

  3. Run the following command:

pip install syside-license syside \
   --index-url https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/69960816/packages/pypi/simple --upgrade

You should see a success message like:

Successfully installed syside-x.x.x

To use the Automator, you need to activate the virtual environment. Open the terminal and use the appropriate command for your operating system:

Run the following command in the terminal:

.venv\scripts\activate

Run the following command in the terminal:

source .venv/bin/activate

Run the following command in the terminal:

source .venv/bin/activate

Note

Editors like Visual Studio Code automatically activate virtual environments when opening a folder with a .venv directory.

To verify activation, run which python in the terminal – the path should end with /.venv/bin/python.

After finishing this step, move on to License Activation to activate your license.

License Activation

Once you have installed SysIDE Automator, you need to activate your license. The license system consists of two main components:

  1. License Key: A unique identifier that grants you access to SysIDE Automator

  2. License Checker: A tool called syside-license that verifies your license validity

To set up and validate your license, you will need to use syside-license tool, which expects your license key in an environment variable SYSIDE_LICENSE_KEY.

For local development, we recommend storing this in a .env file:

  1. Create a new file named .env in the root of your project directory

  2. Add your license key to the file, e.g.:

    SYSIDE_LICENSE_KEY=<your-license-key>

Warning

License keys are sensitive information, keep them private and secure. Exposing them can lead to:

  • Unauthorized use of your license

  • Potential license revocation

  • Security breaches

Note

If you are using version control (like git), make sure to:

  1. Add .env to your .gitignore file

  2. Never commit the .env file to your repository

For GitLab users, you can also use repository-wide push rules to prevent uploading secrets. See GitLab documentation for details.

Once the license key is in place, you need to use license checker to validate the key. That can be done in three different ways:

Using syside-license tool as a Python library. Just append the following license check to your scripts:

import syside_license
syside_license.check()  # Validates your license

# After successful validation, you can use SysIDE:
import syside

Note

You will need to run this command at least once a week, as the cached license files expire after one week.

Using syside-license tool through the command-line interface in Python to validate your license. In the terminal, run the following command:

python -m syside_license check

After validation check is complete, you can call scripts that use SysIDE:

python script_that_uses_syside.py

Note

You will need to run this command at least once a week, as the cached license files expire after one week.

Using syside-license tool as a standalone command-line tool to validate your license. In the terminal, run the following command:

syside-license check    # syside-license.exe check for Windows

After validation check is complete, you can call scripts that use SysIDE:

python script_that_uses_syside.py

After successful validation, you can proceed to Automator’s Essentials to learn about its main features.

License Activation Inside CI/CD

Warning

Using SysIDE Automator in CI/CD is not available for users on the “Individual” license. If you are interested in using SysIDE Automator in CI/CD, please consider upgrading to a “Business” license by contacting us.

Note

If you are on the “Business” license, you should have received a separate “Deployment License Key” that should be used for CI/CD pipelines, instead of your named license key. The deployment license key starts with CI- to make it easier to tell keys apart.

Most CI/CD providers have custom interfaces for providing secrets as environment variables, which should be used instead of .env. Below we provide links to the documentation of the most popular CI/CD providers.

Follow instructions on GitLab documentation on how to add a CI/CD variable. SysIDE license key should be added as a masked variable.

Follow instructions on GitHub documentation on how to add a secret. SysIDE license key should be added as a secret.

Updating

To update Automator, activate the virtual environment and run the following command:

pip install syside-license syside \
   --index-url https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/69960816/packages/pypi/simple --upgrade