GAMA Shared Models

GAMA Shared Models adds a Community folder above User in GAMA's navigator. It discovers community projects from gama-platform/gama.models and copies only the projects the user explicitly chooses into their workspace.

Browsing and importing

Expand Community and then either source:

• Published models reads the public JSON registry, including version, description, author, license and GAMA compatibility information.
• Repository projects lists .project folders in the repository, grouped by category such as Generic and Thematic.

Projects use the regular navigator presentation: remote project, N models. Expanding a project shows metadata sub-items (author when available, description, version, license, repository, etc.), never its files or folder hierarchy. Published metadata and model counts are loaded with the catalogue, without downloading archives. Unknown model counts are explicitly marked unavailable rather than shown as zero. Right-click a project for Import into workspace, Properties, Open repository, or Refresh. The Community hierarchy opts out of workspace resource actions, so the standard Import/Copy/Paste/Delete and resource Properties entries are hidden. Refresh uses the navigator's existing action and F5 binding, without a duplicate.

Browsing never creates workspace projects or downloads project archives. Repository project counts come from GitHub's tree API. Import asks for a local project name, copies the complete selected project and opens it under User. Existing projects and folders are never overwritten. Imported projects are independent local copies, not linked to GitHub, and record their source and version/commit as project properties.

Refresh/F5 reloads the catalogues on expansion. Network work runs in cancellable background jobs. Cached catalogue metadata can be used after a network failure, with an explicit stale/offline message. GitHub authentication is not required; anonymous API rate limits still apply.

This first version imports ZIP projects only, using the latest registered version or a commit-pinned repository snapshot. It verifies registry archive sizes and SHA-256 checksums, limits downloads to 200 MiB and extraction to 1 GiB/10,000 entries, and rejects unsafe paths. Temporary extracted files are removed after import; downloaded archives and JSON metadata remain in the plug-in state cache for reuse.

Projects with linked resources, ambiguous multi-project archives or missing project natures fail explicitly rather than being partially imported. Legacy GAMA nature identifiers are normalized and built-in/library classification is removed so the imported copy remains a user project. Required extensions and GAMA version compatibility remain the user's responsibility; importing does not compile or execute remote models.

Version selection, .gamp/.gamx import, in-app source previews and automatic updates are not implemented yet.

Installing through GAMA

The intended user flow is to open Install GAMA extensions... in GAMA and install the tool alongside other GAMA extensions. For it to appear there, the GAMA extension catalog must include this update site among the repositories it checks:

https://gama-platform.org/gama.shared.models/

The installable feature bundles the gama.shared.models and gama.ui.shared.models plug-ins and is assigned to the gama.category.tool category. The catalog entry and category allow GAMA to discover and present the tool in its extension installer.

Until the update site is included in GAMA's extension catalog, it can be installed manually through Help > Install New Software... using the URL above. Installation requires a GAMA build containing the new gama.ui.navigator.topLevelFolders API. Older GAMA builds are not supported.

Project structure

Project	Role
gama.shared.models	HTTP catalogue discovery, metadata, download and safe ZIP staging.
gama.ui.shared.models	Virtual navigator hierarchy, details/menu commands and workspace import.
gama.feature.shared.models	Installable feature grouping both bundles.
gama.p2site.shared.models	Eclipse p2 update site.

The UI contributes through the navigator's existing folder and Eclipse command extension points. No GAML extensions are registered; annotation processing is explicitly disabled. JSON parsing uses Jackson packages available in the target platform.

Build

Use Maven 3.9.x and a JDK supported by Tycho 5.0.2; CI uses Maven 3.9.16 and Temurin 25. The bundles target JavaSE-25, Eclipse 2026-03 (4.39), and the current GAMA navigator contribution API.

mvn -B -DskipTests package

The default GAMA dependency site is https://updates.gama-platform.org/0.0.0/. At the time this implementation was added, that published site did not yet contain the navigator contribution API. Until an updated GAMA build is published there, supply a compatible p2 repository containing the newly built navigator and its dependencies:

mvn -B -DskipTests \
  -Dgama.target.repository=file:/absolute/path/to/gama/p2/repository package

For CI, set the repository variable GAMA_TARGET_REPOSITORY to a publicly accessible compatible p2 site, or provide the target URL on a manual workflow dispatch. The build intentionally fails against an older navigator rather than silently building a nonfunctional plug-in.

The update site is generated in gama.p2site.shared.models/target/repository/. It contains the two bundles and one feature, not their external dependencies. The target platform covers Linux GTK x86_64, Windows x86_64, and macOS x86_64 / Apple Silicon.

To work in Eclipse/GAMA, import the four existing projects into the workspace. Both bundle projects include PDE/JDT metadata and Java 25/UTF-8 project settings. The Eclipse target/workspace must include the updated gama.ui.navigator.

Update site and publishing

The publishing workflow builds relevant main pushes and pull requests, and can also be dispatched manually. Only successful non-PR builds on main publish. GitHub Pages must use GitHub Actions (build_type=workflow), and the github-pages environment and repository rules must permit deployment and workflow pushes to shared-models-site.

Each published build is retained as an immutable releases/<run-id>-<attempt>/ repository on shared-models-site. Root composite p2 metadata keeps all retained releases accessible and references Eclipse 2026-03 and GAMA for external dependencies. Each release includes source-commit and workflow-run provenance. The publisher requires Python 3.11 or newer:

python3 gama.p2site.shared.models/publish.py \
  gama.p2site.shared.models/target/repository /path/to/site unique-release-id

License and scaffold provenance

Copyright (c) 2007-2026 UMI 209 UMMISCO IRD/SU & Partners. This project is licensed under GNU GPL version 3; see LICENSE and THIRD_PARTY.md.

The PDE, Tycho, feature, and versioned p2 publishing scaffold is adapted from gama-platform/gama.copilot. Copilot-specific code, service dependencies, and extension contributions are not included.