QCoDeS 0.59.0

[Jens Hedegaard Nielsen (jenshnielsen)]

QCoDeS 0.59.0 (2026-08-24)

Breaking Changes:

• Legacy backwards-compatibility aliases across the instrument_drivers module that were
  deprecated in QCoDeS 0.57.0 have been removed. This includes deprecated class aliases and
  deprecated module shims for AlazarTech, Basel, Galil, HP, Ithaco, Keithley, Keysight,
  Mini-Circuits, Oxford Instruments, Rigol, Rohde & Schwarz, Signal Hound,
  Stanford Research Systems, Tektronix, Weinschel, and Yokogawa drivers. Users should
  migrate to the canonical class names listed in the 0.57.0 changelog. Bump certifi from 2026.2.25 to 2026.4.22 #8060

• Several module-level TypeVar definitions and type aliases that are no longer used
  internally have been deprecated. Importing them will emit a QCoDeSDeprecationWarning.
  They will be removed in a future version. Convert to PEP 695 type parameters and deprecate removed TypeVars + type aliases  #8096

• Removed deprecated VISA-related APIs from
  :class:~qcodes.instrument.visa.VisaInstrument: the _address property
  (use address instead) and the visalib property (use visabackend
  instead). The unused and deprecated MockAMI430 mocker class has also been
  removed. Cleanup deprecated apis #8103

• Importing the short hand aliases (such as Parameter, Measurement,
  Instrument, Monitor and Station) from the top level qcodes
  namespace is now deprecated and emits a QCoDeSDeprecationWarning. Import
  these names from their respective submodules (for example qcodes.parameters,
  qcodes.dataset or qcodes.station) instead. The submodules themselves
  (such as qcodes.dataset and qcodes.instrument) remain accessible from the
  top level qcodes namespace and are not deprecated.

  Similarly, importing the parameter classes (such as Parameter, ManualParameter and
  DelegateParameter) from qcodes.instrument is now deprecated and emits a
  QCoDeSDeprecationWarning. Import these names from qcodes.parameters
  instead. The names remain available from qcodes.instrument at runtime for
  backwards compatibility but are hidden from static type checkers, so importing
  them from qcodes.instrument is reported as an unknown attribute. Bump j178/prek-action from 2.0.4 to 2.0.5 #8252

• The default format of DataSetProtocol.run_timestamp,
  DataSetProtocol.completed_timestamp and
  qcodes.dataset.sqlite.queries.raw_time_to_str_time changed from
  "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S" to "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S%z", i.e. the rendered
  timestamps now include the UTC offset of the local timezone, e.g.
  "2026-07-31 10:27:25+0200".

  Timestamps are stored in the QCoDeS database as POSIX timestamps, which do not
  capture the timezone in which the measurement was performed. They are therefore
  still rendered in the local timezone of the machine reading the dataset, but
  the resulting string is no longer ambiguous. This also applies to the
  run_timestamp and completed_timestamp attributes written when exporting
  a dataset to NetCDF or xarray.

  Pass an explicit fmt argument to restore the previous behaviour.

  Parameter cache timestamps are now timezone aware. ParameterBase.cache.timestamp
  (and therefore Parameter.get_latest.get_timestamp()) returns a
  datetime with tzinfo set to the local timezone rather than a naive
  datetime. Code that compares these timestamps to naive datetime objects
  will raise TypeError and must be updated to use timezone aware datetimes.

  Consequently the "ts" field of a parameter snapshot changed from
  "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S" to ISO 8601 format including the UTC offset, e.g.
  "2026-07-31 10:27:25+02:00". Snapshots can be parsed with
  datetime.datetime.fromisoformat. Bump tqdm from 4.69.1 to 4.70.0 #8345

• The default value of the update argument of snapshot, snapshot_base
  and print_readable_snapshot (on every :class:.Metadatable, including
  instruments, channels and parameters) is now "Only_invalid". Previously
  calling e.g. instrument.snapshot() or parameter.snapshot() without an
  argument effectively defaulted to the equivalent of "Never" and never
  refreshed anything. As a result, snapshot() (and print_readable_snapshot())
  will now call get() on parameters whose cache is invalid, which may query the
  underlying instrument. Pass update="Never" explicitly to restore the previous
  "do not update" behavior, or update="All" to force a full update.

  Relatedly, the station snapshot that :class:.Measurement stores before a
  measurement starts is now taken with update="Only_invalid" (previously the
  equivalent of "Never"), so parameters with an invalid cache are refreshed via
  a single get while parameters with a valid cache keep their cached value.

  The legacy True / None / False values of the update argument are
  now deprecated aliases for "All" / "Only_invalid" / "Never". They keep
  working (no runtime warning is raised), but type checkers will flag their use;
  prefer the string values instead. Add well-named snapshot update modes, at measurement start do only-invalid snapshot, a few driver fixes of snapshotting #8354

Improved:

• :meth:.Instrument.close_all gained an only_subclasses keyword argument. When
  set to True, only instruments that are instances of the class (or its subclasses)
  on which close_all is called are closed, leaving other registered instruments open.
  The log_status and only_subclasses arguments are now keyword-only. Instrument Add option to only close specific subclass #8312

Improved Drivers:

• Fixed three bugs in :class:qcodes.instrument_drivers.QuantumDesign.DynaCoolPPMS.DynaCool.DynaCool
  that prevented the driver from instantiating and from updating the
  temperature_setpoint cache:

  • block_while_ramping_temperature is now created with set_cmd=None /
    get_cmd=None so it behaves as a settable cache-only parameter, instead of
    set_cmd=False / get_cmd=False which made it read-only and rejected
    the supplied initial_value.
  • Removed the duplicate instrument=self argument from the
    blocking_t_state_check_interval parameter creation, which is supplied
    automatically by add_parameter and was raising on construction.
  • Fixed an AttributeError when setting the temperature: the cache update
    in _set_temperature_and_state now correctly references
    self.temperature_setpoint rather than the non-existent self.setpoint. Fix DynaCool driver init and temperature_setpoint cache update #8097

• Correct the lower bound of the span parameter validator of the KeysightPNABase driver to 0 Hz. Fix lower bound of the span parameter validator of the KeysightPNABase #8195

• Referring to the:

  • Keysight Trueform Series Operating and Service Guide_
  • Agilent 33210A 10 MHz Function / Arbitrary Waveform Generator User's Guide_
  • Agilent 33250A 80 MHz Function / Arbitrary Waveform Generator_

  Improvements:

  • Expanded the list of supported devices for the KeysightAgilent_33XXX driver
  • Added implementations of SCPI commands for working with: ARB signals, edges of Pulse function, output termination, voltage autoranging
  • Created tests for new commands and update sim file

  .. _Keysight Trueform Series Operating and Service Guide: https://www.keysight.com/us/en/assets/9018-03714/service-manuals/9018-03714.pdf
  .. _Agilent 33210A 10 MHz Function / Arbitrary Waveform Generator User's Guide: https://www.keysight.com/us/en/support/33210A/33210a-waveform-and-function-generator.html
  .. _Agilent 33250A 80 MHz Function / Arbitrary Waveform Generator: https://www.keysight.com/us/en/support/33250A/function--arbitrary-waveform-generator-80-mhz.html feature: KeysightAgilent_33XXX.py improvements #8254

• Fixed the timezone offset written into the waveform and sequence files
  generated by the Tektronix AWG70000A drivers. The offset was computed manually
  from time.timezone, which gave the offset the wrong sign and ignored
  daylight saving time, so e.g. a machine in UTC+02:00 wrote -02:00. The
  offset is now taken from the local timezone of the timestamp itself. Bump tqdm from 4.69.1 to 4.70.0 #8345

• The QDev QDac driver now honors the "Only_invalid" snapshot update mode:
  when snapshotting, the bulk status read that refreshes the channel
  v/i/irange/vrange caches is only performed for update="All",
  or for update="Only_invalid" when one of those channel caches is actually
  invalid. Previously the bulk read was performed on every snapshot that was not
  "Never", which made repeated snapshots unnecessarily expensive even when the
  channel caches were already valid. Add well-named snapshot update modes, at measurement start do only-invalid snapshot, a few driver fixes of snapshotting #8354

New:

• Added :func:qcodes.dataset.get_db_overview, a fast way to list the runs in a
  QCoDeS database. It fetches run metadata (experiment/sample names, timestamps,
  record counts and guids) via a single JOIN query on the runs and
  experiments tables, without instantiating a DataSet object per run,
  making it possible to list databases with many thousands of runs almost
  instantly. The returned :class:qcodes.dataset.RunOverviewDict is also exported
  on the public qcodes.dataset namespace. The function does not return
  snapshots as they can be large and slow down building the database overview.
  The number of results in each dataset is taken from shape information when
  available, and otherwise falls back to a best-effort count of the rows in the
  so-called results table that exists for every dataset, which may NOT be as
  precise as DataSet.number_of_results. Add get_db_overview for fast, lightweight run listing #8266

• The update argument of snapshot and snapshot_base (available on every
  :class:.Metadatable, including instruments, channels and parameters) now accepts
  the explicit string values "All", "Only_invalid" and "Never":

  • "All" forces an update of every value (calls get() on each parameter).
  • "Only_invalid" only refreshes parameters whose cache is invalid, via a
    single get (cache.get(get_if_invalid=True)), and uses the cached value
    for everything else.
  • "Never" never updates and uses the latest values already in memory.

  The new public helper :func:qcodes.metadatable.normalize_snapshot_update and the
  :data:qcodes.metadatable.SnapshotUpdate type are exported for drivers that
  override snapshot_base and need to interpret the update argument. Add well-named snapshot update modes, at measurement start do only-invalid snapshot, a few driver fixes of snapshotting #8354

Under the hood:

• Importing the top level qcodes namespace no longer eagerly imports the
  dataset, instrument, parameters, monitor, station and
  validators submodules. The discouraged short hand aliases (such as
  qcodes.Parameter and qcodes.Measurement) as well as qcodes.validators
  are still available at runtime via a lazy module level __getattr__, but they
  are intentionally hidden from static type checkers and are now reported as
  unknown attributes rather than typed as Any; import the names from their
  respective submodules to retain type information. This breaks a large import
  cycle spanning the parameters, dataset and instrument packages that triggered an
  internal error in mypy 2.2. Bump j178/prek-action from 2.0.4 to 2.0.5 #8252

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This discussion was created from the release QCoDeS 0.59.0.