Simulation Safety

Simulation Safety Guidelines

• Keep simulation logic inside rocketpy/simulation and avoid leaking domain behavior that belongs in rocketpy/rocket, rocketpy/motors, or rocketpy/environment.
• Preserve public API behavior and exported names used by rocketpy/__init__.py.
• Prefer extending existing simulation components before creating new abstractions:
  • flight.py: simulation state, integration flow, and post-processing.
  • monte_carlo.py: orchestration and statistical execution workflows.
  • flight_data_exporter.py and flight_data_importer.py: persistence and interchange.
  • flight_comparator.py: comparative analysis outputs.
• Be explicit with physical units and reference frames in new parameters, attributes, and docstrings.
• For position/orientation-sensitive behavior, use explicit conventions (for example tail_to_nose, nozzle_to_combustion_chamber) and avoid implicit assumptions.
• Treat state mutation carefully when cached values exist.
• If changes can invalidate @cached_property values, either avoid post-computation mutation or explicitly invalidate affected caches in a controlled, documented way.
• Keep numerical behavior deterministic unless stochastic behavior is intentional and documented.
• For Monte Carlo and stochastic code paths, make randomness controllable and reproducible when tests rely on it.
• Prefer vectorized NumPy operations for hot paths and avoid introducing Python loops in performance-critical sections without justification.
• Guard against numerical edge cases (zero/near-zero denominators, interpolation limits, and boundary conditions).
• Do not change default numerical tolerances or integration behavior without documenting motivation and validating regression impact.
• Add focused regression tests for changed behavior, including edge cases and orientation-dependent behavior.
• For floating-point expectations, use pytest.approx with meaningful tolerances.
• Run focused tests first, then broader relevant tests (make pytest and make pytest-slow when applicable).

See:

• docs/development/testing.rst
• docs/development/style_guide.rst
• docs/development/setting_up.rst
• docs/technical/index.rst