Runtimes

Runtimes are containers that encapsulate a Method. They can be seen as minimal virtual environments made of an operating system and all dependencies required by a particular Method. The technology and the list of available Runtimes is strictly related to type of the Infrastructure. In an Infrastructure of type Docker or Docker Swarm cluster the available Runtimes are listed in a registry of Docker containers for example.

🐳 Runtimes in CCP

A runtime defines the environment where a Method is executed.
It includes the base operating system, installed software, and dependencies.

In CCP, runtimes are implemented as container images (e.g., Docker), and selected via the ccpimage input.

🧾 What Is a Runtime?

A runtime is a pre-configured execution environment.

It contains:

A base image (e.g., Ubuntu, Alpine)
Pre-installed tools (e.g., Python, GDAL, Java, R)
A predefined entrypoint (/bin/bash by default)

📦 Example Runtimes

Image Name	Description
`python:3.9`	Standard Python 3.9 environment
`python:3.9-gdal`	Python with geospatial libraries (GDAL)
`r-base:4.2`	R language runtime
`jupyter/python3`	Jupyter-enabled Python environment
`debian:bookworm`	Minimal OS, for low-dependency methods
`bash`	Generic shell-based execution

You can find the list of supported runtimes in the ccpimage dropdown.

🛠 Specifying the Runtime

In your method definition (method.json), add:

"inputs": {
  "ccpimage": {
    "id": "ccpimage",
    "title": "Runtime",
    "schema": {
      "type": "string",
      "format": "ccpimage",
      "enum": ["python:3.9", "r-base:4.2", "bash"]
    },
    "minOccurs": 1,
    "maxOccurs": 1
  }
}

The selected value will determine which container is used during execution.

🧱 Custom Runtimes (Consolidated)

Advanced users can prepare a custom runtime image that:

Includes all dependencies pre-installed
Embeds the algorithm itself
Requires no external downloads at execution time

This is part of the consolidation process.

⚙️ Runtime and Infrastructure Compatibility

Each runtime must be compatible with the selected infrastructure:

Infrastructure type	Runtime type
`docker`	Docker image
`lxd-cluster`	LXD image
`kubernetes`	Containerized runtime

Controllers ensure the correct environment is used during scheduling.