Plugin Customizations
Adding your own scheduling algorithm
FlexMeasures comes with in-built scheduling algorithms for often-used use cases. However, you can use your own algorithm, as well.
The idea is that you’d still use FlexMeasures’ API to post flexibility states and trigger new schedules to be computed (see Posting flexibility states), but in the background your custom scheduling algorithm is being used.
Let’s walk through an example!
First, we need to write a a class (inhering from the Base Scheduler) with a schedule function which accepts arguments just like the in-built schedulers (their code is here). The following minimal example gives you an idea of some meta information you can add for labeling your data, as well as the inputs and outputs of such a scheduling function:
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
import pandas as pd
from pandas.tseries.frequencies import to_offset
from flexmeasures import Scheduler, Sensor
class DummyScheduler(Scheduler):
__author__ = "My Company"
__version__ = "2"
def compute(
self,
*args,
**kwargs
):
"""
Just a dummy scheduler that always plans to consume at maximum capacity.
(Schedulers return positive values for consumption, and negative values for production)
"""
return pd.Series(
self.sensor.get_attribute("capacity_in_mw"),
index=pd.date_range(self.start, self.end, freq=self.resolution, inclusive="left"),
)
def deserialize_config(self):
"""Do not care about any flex config sent in."""
self.config_deserialized = True
Note
It’s possible to add arguments that describe the asset flexibility model and the flexibility (EMS) context in more detail. For example, for storage assets we support various state-of-charge parameters. For details on flexibility model and context, see Describing flexibility and the [POST] /sensors/(id)/schedules/trigger endpoint.
Finally, make your scheduler be the one that FlexMeasures will use for certain sensors:
from flexmeasures import Sensor
scheduler_specs = {
"module": "flexmeasures.data.tests.dummy_scheduler", # or a file path, see note below
"class": "DummyScheduler",
}
my_sensor = Sensor.query.filter(Sensor.name == "My power sensor on a flexible asset").one_or_none()
my_sensor.attributes["custom-scheduler"] = scheduler_specs
From now on, all schedules (see Forecasting & scheduling) which are requested for this sensor should get computed by your custom function! For later lookup, the data will be linked to a new data source with the name “My Opinion”.
Note
To describe the module, we used an importable module here (actually a custom scheduling function we use to test this). You can also provide a full file path to the module, e.g. “/path/to/my_file.py”.
Todo
We’re planning to use a similar approach to allow for custom forecasting algorithms, as well.
Deploying your plugin via Docker
You can extend the FlexMeasures Docker image with your plugin’s logic.
Imagine your plugin package (with an __init__.py file, one of the setups we discussed in Plugin showcase) is called flexmeasures_testplugin.
Then, this is a minimal possible Dockerfile ― containers based on this will serve FlexMeasures (see the original Dockerfile in the FlexMeasures repository) with the plugin logic, like endpoints:
FROM lfenergy/flexmeasures
COPY flexmeasures_testplugin/ /app/flexmeasures_testplugin
ENV FLEXMEASURES_PLUGINS="/app/flexmeasures_testplugin"
You can of course also add multiple plugins this way.
If you also want to install your requirements, you could for instance add these layers:
COPY requirements/app.in /app/requirements/flexmeasures_testplugin.txt
RUN pip3 install --no-cache-dir -r requirements/flexmeasures_testplugin.txt
Note
No need to install flexmeasures here, as the Docker image we are based on already installed FlexMeasures from code. If you pip3-install your plugin here (assuming it’s on Pypi), check if it recognizes that FlexMeasures installation as it should.
Adding your own style sheets
You can style your plugin’s pages in a distinct way by adding your own style-sheet. This happens by overwriting FlexMeasures styles block. Add to your plugin’s base template (see above):
{% block styles %}
{{ super() }}
<!-- Our client styles -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ url_for('our_client_bp.static', filename='css/style.css')}}">
{% endblock %}
This will find css/styles.css if you add that folder and file to your Blueprint’s static folder.
Note
This styling will only apply to the pages defined in your plugin (to pages based on your own base template). To apply a styling to all other pages which are served by FlexMeasures, consider using the config setting FLEXMEASURES_EXTRA_CSS_PATH.
Adding config settings
FlexMeasures can automatically check for you if any custom config settings, which your plugin is using, are present.
This can be very useful in maintaining installations of FlexMeasures with plugins.
Config settings can be registered by setting the (optional) __settings__ attribute on your plugin module:
__settings__ = {
"MY_PLUGIN_URL": {
"description": "URL used by my plugin for x.",
"level": "error",
},
"MY_PLUGIN_TOKEN": {
"description": "Token used by my plugin for y.",
"level": "warning",
"message_if_missing": "Without this token, my plugin will not do y.",
"parse_as": str,
},
"MY_PLUGIN_COLOR": {
"description": "Color used to override the default plugin color.",
"level": "info",
},
}
Alternatively, use from my_plugin import __settings__ in your plugin module, and create __settings__.py with:
MY_PLUGIN_URL = {
"description": "URL used by my plugin for x.",
"level": "error",
}
MY_PLUGIN_TOKEN = {
"description": "Token used by my plugin for y.",
"level": "warning",
"message_if_missing": "Without this token, my plugin will not do y.",
"parse_as": str,
}
MY_PLUGIN_COLOR = {
"description": "Color used to override the default plugin color.",
"level": "info",
}
Finally, you might want to override some FlexMeasures configuration settings from within your plugin. Some examples for possible settings are named on this page, e.g. the custom style (see above) or custom logo (see below). There is a record_once function on Blueprints which can help with this. An example:
@our_client_bp.record_once
def record_logo_path(setup_state):
setup_state.app.config[
"FLEXMEASURES_MENU_LOGO_PATH"
] = "/path/to/my/logo.svg"
Using a custom favicon icon
The favicon might be an important part of your customisation. You probably want your logo to be used.
First, your blueprint needs to know about a folder with static content (this is fairly common ― it’s also where you’d put your own CSS or JavaScript files):
our_client_bp = Blueprint(
"our_client",
"our_client",
static_folder="our_client/ui/static",
)
Put your icon file in that folder. The exact path may depend on how you set your plugin directories up, but this is how a blueprint living in its own directory could work.
Then, overwrite the /favicon.ico route which FlexMeasures uses to get the favicon from:
from flask import send_from_directory
@our_client_bp.route("/favicon.ico")
def favicon():
return send_from_directory(
our_client_bp.static_folder,
"img/favicon.png",
mimetype="image/png",
)
Here we assume your favicon is a PNG file. You can also use a classic .ico file, then your mime type probably works best as image/x-icon.
Validating arguments in your CLI commands with marshmallow
Arguments to CLI commands can be validated using marshmallow.
FlexMeasures is using this functionality (via the MarshmallowClickMixin class) and also defines some custom field schemas.
We demonstrate this here, and also show how you can add your own custom field schema:
from datetime import datetime
import click
from flexmeasures.data.schemas import AwareDateTimeField
from flexmeasures.data.schemas.utils import MarshmallowClickMixin
from marshmallow import fields
class CLIStrField(fields.Str, MarshmallowClickMixin):
"""
String field validator, made usable for CLI functions.
You could also define your own validations here.
"""
@click.command("meet")
@click.option(
"--where",
required=True,
type=CLIStrField(),
help="(Required) Where we meet",
)
@click.option(
"--when",
required=False,
type=AwareDateTimeField(format="iso"), # FlexMeasures already made this field suitable for CLI functions
help="[Optional] When we meet (expects timezone-aware ISO 8601 datetime format)",
)
def schedule_meeting(
where: str,
when: datetime | None = None,
):
print(f"Okay, see you {where} on {when}.")