Models API

[wpbonelli]

Demo programmatic access to example data/models via https://github.com/fatiando/pooch.

This could be convenient for

• feature: self-contained notebooks, API for example models modflowpy/flopy#1872 (comment)
• Self-contained example notebooks modflow6#1348
• autotests in flopy, modflow6 and elsewhere

[wpbonelli]

A simple proof of concept is available here: https://github.com/wpbonelli/modflow-devtools/tree/models-api

If this seems worthwhile, flopy may be a better place for it because the API

• could return MFSimulation or model directly
• could construct models lazily from Python/flopy on first call then cache input files, as an alternative to downloading them from GitHub

[wpbonelli]

I think we can build a registry in release time CI, release it with the package, and then devtools can provide access to models in

• https://github.com/MODFLOW-ORG/modflow6-examples
• https://github.com/MODFLOW-ORG/modflow6-testmodels
• https://github.com/MODFLOW-ORG/modflow6-largetestmodels

..without moving the input files here. This would also work for flopy example data. Though at some point it is probably still worth considering defining all examples in flopy python code, at which point it probably makes more sense to move this there.

[wpbonelli]

This will deprecate the test models fixtures when we have it.