How to use Software Heritage for archiving and referencing your source code: guidelines and walkthrough

TL;DR

This paper provides comprehensive guidelines and a walkthrough for researchers on how to effectively use Software Heritage to archive and reference their source code, ensuring long-term preservation and precise citation.

Contribution

It introduces a clear, three-step process for researchers to archive and reference source code using Software Heritage, enhancing reproducibility and citation accuracy.

Findings

Simplifies the process of archiving source code in Software Heritage

Enables precise referencing of code fragments in research articles

Promotes long-term preservation of research software

Abstract

Software source code is an essential research output, and many research communities strongly encourage making the source code of the artefact available by archiving it in publicly-accessible long-term archives.Software Heritage is a non profit, long term universal archive specifically designed for software source code, and able to store not only a software artifact, but also its full development history. It provides the ideal place to preserve research software artifacts, and offers powerful mechanisms to enhance research articles with precise references to relevant fragments of your source code.Using Software Heritage for your research software artifacts is straightforward and involves three simple steps. This document details each of these three steps, providing guidelines for making the most out of Software Heritage for your research.