Constraints on future analysis metadata systems in High Energy Physics

TL;DR

This paper discusses the importance, challenges, and best practices for designing effective analysis metadata systems in High Energy Physics to improve usability, scalability, and future reinterpretation of analyses.

Contribution

It categorizes metadata types, reviews current solutions, and proposes design considerations and best practices for future metadata systems in HEP.

Findings

Metadata systems should be easy to use and scalable.

Community-driven best practices can guide future development.

Design considerations include sociological, technical, and preservation factors.

Abstract

In High Energy Physics (HEP), analysis metadata comes in many forms -- from theoretical cross-sections, to calibration corrections, to details about file processing. Correctly applying metadata is a crucial and often time-consuming step in an analysis, but designing analysis metadata systems has historically received little direct attention. Among other considerations, an ideal metadata tool should be easy to use by new analysers, should scale to large data volumes and diverse processing paradigms, and should enable future analysis reinterpretation. This document, which is the product of community discussions organised by the HEP Software Foundation, categorises types of metadata by scope and format and gives examples of current metadata solutions. Important design considerations for metadata systems, including sociological factors, analysis preservation efforts, and technical factors, are discussed. A list of best practices and technical requirements for future analysis metadata systems is presented. These best practices could guide the development of a future cross-experimental effort for analysis metadata tools.