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Using the web interface

Every Open Climate Service instance ships with a small built-in web interface — no separate application to install. Once the instance is running, open its root URL (http://127.0.0.1:9000 by default) and the landing page links to everything below.

Page URL What it does
Landing page / Instance overview, the datasets it holds, the templates and workflows it offers
Map viewer /map View published datasets on an interactive map
openEO editor /openeo Redirects to the openEO Web Editor, pre-connected to this instance
API docs /docs Interactive Swagger documentation for the REST API

The interface is intended for operators setting up and curating an instance. Everything it does is also available through the REST API, so the same operations can be scripted or scheduled — see the API reference.

The overview and the collections

Every page carries the same navigation on the left (a row of tabs on a narrow screen), and each entry is a page of its own — an address that can be bookmarked, shared or opened without JavaScript.

Page What it shows
Overview (/) The instance's extent on a globe, counts of datasets, dataset templates and workflows, the size of everything stored, plus access mode and version
Datasets (/datasets) The data this instance holds, with temporal coverage and publication status
Dataset templates (/dataset-templates) Data the instance can fetch from outside providers, titled by dataset with the provider beneath
Workflows (/workflows) Each workflow and what it makes: a published dataset or an exported file
Processes (/processes) The processes this instance can run, tagged by origin and filterable by it

The overview counts the collections and links to them rather than listing them, so the root stays small however much the instance holds.

The Datasets and Dataset templates lists can be searched and filtered, and are shown a page at a time. Without JavaScript each list is complete.

Datasets and dataset templates can be shown as tiles or as a list; the choice is remembered in the browser. Templates show their provider, description and details, with no preview, since they hold no data yet. Each dataset shows its thumbnail, source, a short description, publication status, period, temporal coverage and units. A dataset ingested before thumbnails existed shows its colour scale instead, until its next sync renders one.

The dataset template page (/dataset-templates/{dataset_id})

Selecting a dataset template opens its page: the description, what the data is (variable, units, period, available range, resolution and coverage), the provider and licence, how it updates, and its colour scale. If it has already been ingested, the page links to that dataset.

The page also has an ingest form. It takes a start and an optional end, prefilled for the kind of source — the past year for historical data, blank (meaning "from now") for a forecast, and the full declared range for a source that runs into the future. Progress is shown on the page; when ingestion finishes the dataset page opens, and an error is shown in place. Data is always fetched for the instance's configured extent. The form is not shown on a read-only instance or when no extent is configured.

The API page (/api)

The API page is built from the instance's own OpenAPI schema, so it lists the endpoints that instance actually serves, grouped by area — datasets, ingestion, sync, Zarr and Icechunk access, STAC, openEO, and the rest — each with what it does. It also links the STAC catalogue, the openEO capabilities and collections, the Swagger documentation and the OpenAPI schema. On a read-only instance the endpoints that refuse are marked.

The workflow page (/workflows/{workflow_id})

Selecting a workflow opens its page: what it does, including its usage example, whether it publishes a dataset or exports a file, its parameters with their types and defaults, the datasets it produces (linked where they have been made), and any automation configured to run it when a dataset is updated. The process graph itself is at /process_graphs/{workflow_id}. Workflows cannot yet be started from the page.

The process page (/processes/{process_id})

Selecting a process opens its page: its description, origin and categories, its parameters and return value, the workflows on this instance that use it, and its reference links. As with datasets, the URL still returns the openEO process description as JSON to API clients; a browser gets the page, and ?f=json and ?f=html choose explicitly.

The dataset page (/datasets/{dataset_id})

Selecting a dataset opens its page: a larger preview, the full description, and everything known about it — variable, units, period, coverage, resolution and bounding box; source, licence, providers and how it is made (fetched, or produced by a named workflow); publication and update status; colour scale; and its version history. Links lead to the map viewer, the Zarr store, the STAC collection and the JSON metadata.

The same URL still returns JSON to API clients. A browser, which asks for HTML first, gets the page; ?f=json and ?f=html choose explicitly.

Dataset templates and Workflows together cover every template registered on the instance: one that can be ingested is listed under Dataset templates, and one that a workflow writes is listed under that workflow (see Templates that are produced, not ingested).

Ingesting and syncing data

There is no separate console: data is added from the page of the thing it concerns.

  • Ingest from a dataset template page (/dataset-templates/{dataset_id}): enter a start and an optional end, choose whether to publish and whether to overwrite an existing store, and start. Progress streams on the page; the dataset page opens when it finishes.
  • Sync from a dataset page (/datasets/{dataset_id}): the page shows what the source has published since the last sync, and Start sync fetches it, optionally only up to a cutoff date. The page reloads with the new coverage when it finishes. A sync keeps the dataset's current publication state — a published dataset stays published — because an incremental sync appends to the store the published version already points at.

You do not enter a bounding box — ingestion always uses the spatial extent configured for the instance in climate-service.yaml. On a read-only instance neither form is shown.

The map viewer (/map)

The map viewer renders published datasets directly in the browser from their GeoZarr stores (using MapLibre and zarr-layer), so only datasets ingested with publishing enabled appear here.

  • Dataset selector — pick any published dataset from the dropdown.
  • Dimension controls — the viewer builds one control per non-spatial dimension of the dataset, choosing the type from the dimension's metadata: a slider for a continuous, evenly-spaced axis (time, or a regular ordinal axis like day-of-year) and a dropdown for a categorical or irregular one.
  • Legend — a colour bar with the value range and units, derived from the dataset's metadata (including the colour scheme defined in its template).
  • Source and units — shown alongside the legend for context.
  • Link to the dataset — opens the dataset's page.
  • The map fits to the instance's configured extent on load.

The viewer sits under the same header and navigation as the other pages. To link to one dataset, use /map?dataset={dataset_id}: the viewer opens with that dataset selected, and choosing another dataset updates the address, so what is in the address bar can always be shared. A dataset page's Open in map viewer button uses the same link.

If a dataset doesn't show up, confirm it was ingested with Publish enabled — only published datasets are listed.

When to use the API instead

The web interface is the quickest way to set up and curate an instance by hand. For automation, scheduling, or programmatic access — recurring ingestion, scripted sync, or integrating with other systems — use the REST API directly. The management forms map one-to-one onto the POST /ingestions and POST /sync/{dataset_id} endpoints documented in the API reference. To read and analyse published data, see Accessing data.