Swift Target-of-Opportunity API

Change history for swift_too module

API version = 1.2, swifttools version 3.0

Author: Jamie A. Kennea (Penn State)

swifttools 4.0.0 / swift_too 2.0.0

Mar 17, 2026 : Major update of swift_too for the REST-backed API.

This release is the first major swift_too update since the 3.x line. It keeps the same high-level use cases, but modernizes internals and some public behavior.

• Reworked swift_too around strongly typed Pydantic models and schemas.
• Added async request support (async get/post) and queue-based async workflows for API query classes.
• Deprecated and disabled QueryJob; use async methods on request/query objects directly (for example queue() + polling the object).
• Improved request validation and status/error handling across endpoints, including stricter GET argument schemas and better date/range handling.
• Updated back-compat support for historical class names/arguments while moving codebase internals to the new API model and naming conventions.
• Added broad unit-test coverage for core base classes and Swift endpoint models, and refreshed example notebooks for the updated workflows.
• Swift API objects are now hashable, allowing use in sets/dicts where this was previously unreliable.

swifttools 3.0.23 / swift_too 1.2.33

Nov 13, 2024 : Fix bug that caused crash when reading in UVOT modes in TOORequests when detail = True.

swifttools 3.0.21 / swift_too 1.2.32

Feb 2, 2024 : Add triggertype filter in GUANO

• Now with GUANO you can pass triggertype as an argument to filter on the type of trigger that you want. E.g. passing triggertype = 'GBM GRB' will return only triggers from Fermi/GBM. If you want to see examples of valid triggertype values, please visit here: https://www.swift.psu.edu/guano

swifttools 3.0.20 / swift_too 1.2.31

Nov 22, 2023: Remove requests config that conflicted with another module.

• Configuration to use IPV4 only, required due to a networking issue at the server end, conflicts with some other Python module. This has now been removed.

swifttools 3.0.18 / swift_too 1.2.30

Oct 31, 2023: Resolve issue with noisy warnings in Data even if quiet=True

• When downloading files using Data module, if those files already exist on disk a warning is now issued, instead of a printed warning. If quiet=True no warnings are issued.

swifttools 3.0.17 / swift_too 1.2.29

Oct 31, 2023: Add AWS download support to Data class.

• Added option to download data from AWS instead of HEASARC. Add argument aws=True to Data class arguments to default to AWS downlink. For details of AWS data hosting, see here.

swifttools 3.0.16 / swift_too 1.2.28

March 22, 2023: Warning about incorrectly formatted ISO8601 dates

• ISO8601 formatted dates without a timezone was assuming localtime, causing confusion. ISO8601 formatted dates should include a timezone specifier, e.g. '2022-01-01T00:00:00Z'. If no timezone is given, the code now issues a warning about this issue. Please use the "Z" for UTC times, as required for for the ISO8601 specification.

swifttools 3.0.15 / swift_too 1.2.27

March 17, 2023: TOORequests fix

• Remove a print rogue print statement. Make sure status is cleared on TOO submission validation.

swifttools 3.0.14 / swift_too 1.2.26

March 17, 2023: TOORequests fix

• Fixed a bug related to the last update, where source_name wasn't being set correctly.

swifttools 3.0.13 / swift_too 1.2.25

March 16, 2023: TOORequests fix

• In a recent update, TOORequests was not correctly assigning the name of the TOO target name into source_name, this has been corrected.

swifttools 3.0.12 / swift_too 1.2.24

February 27, 2023: GUANO update

• Each GUANO_Entry now has uplinked and executed flag, which indicate if the GUANO command has been uplinked to Swift, and executed onboard. If you set successful=False when executing a GUANO API call, it will load GUANO entries that have no data associated with them yet. This way, you can fetch recent GUANO commands that have not yet been fully processed by the Swift SDC.

swifttools 3.0.11 / swift_too 1.2.23

December 2, 2022: Bug fix release

• Fix issue where trigger time in GUANOEntry did not get clock corrected.
• Fix issue where running clock_correct() on a zero length entry or an already corrected entry could cause a hang.

swifttools 3.0.10 / swift_too 1.2.22

November 30, 2022: Update class names to new style. Add better support for date formats.

• Class names and aliases have been updated to be better PEP8 compliant across the board.
• Added support for accepting dates in ISO8601 format.
• Added support for accepting timezone aware datetime, they are converted to naive UTC datetime values internally.
• Extended Swift_Calendar to support searching for scheduling information. The Swift Scheduling Calendar is the long-term plan for Swift observations. Note that an entry into the Calendar does not guarantee that an observation will be scheduled, however it does mean that it is in the calendar to be scheduled for that day. You can now use Calendar class to query upcoming plans, by date range, coordinate, TOO ID and target ID.

swifttools 3.0.8 / swift_too 1.2.21

September 23rd, 2022: Add astropy units support.

• Add astropy units support, so now for values like radius, lengths of time etc, you can add units using the standard astropy.units module. So for example, if you want to query the visibility of Sgr A for the 2 weeks: `VisQuery(name='Sgr A',length=2u.week), or say query all observations within 30 arc-mins of the Vela Pulsar:ObsQuery(name='Vela Pulsar',radius=30u.arcmin)`.

• In preparation for a future update, many class aliases have been updated for better PEP8 compliance, and internal consistency. So for example, UVOT_mode becomes UVOTMode etc. The old class names still work, but will be deprecated upon moving to API version 1.3. Where necessary example Jupyter Notebooks are being updated for the new style class name.

swifttools 3.0.6 / swift_too 1.2.20

September 8nd, 2022: Add download method

• Added download method for easy downloading of SDC data for any class with an associated observation id. See Jupyter notebook UVOT_mode example notebook.ipynb for examples of use.

swifttools 3.0.4 / swift_too 1.2.19

September 2nd, 2022: Bug fix release

• Make error reporting for UVOT_mode consistent with other classes.

swifttools 3.0.3 / swift_too 1.2.18

September 2nd, 2022: Add support for checking if UVOT mode is valid for a give coordinate

• Add mode checking to UVOT_mode. Now if you pass ra and dec, skycoord or use name to resolve a target name to coordinates, it will check if mode associated with uvotmode is valid for this position. This on the server side performs a bright star check, and if it fails for any reason, the request will be rejected with an error along the lines of 'The following UVOT filters are not allowed due to a bright star: White'.

swifttools 2.4.9 / swift_too 1.2.17

August 10th, 2022: Subthreshold data support

• Add flag to Swift_GUANO_Data indicating if GUANO data are located in the "BAT Data For Subthreshold Triggers" section of the Swift SDC, rather than being associated with normal data. If this is true then subthresh = True, otherwise subthresh = False.
• Add support for downloading BAT subthreshold trigger data to Swift_Data (AKA Data). To download subthreshold trigger data, give the obsid and set argument subthresh = True. Data will be downloaded into a directory named after the obsid containing just the subthreshold trigger data.

swifttools 2.4.8 / swift_too 1.2.16

July 1st, 2022: Bug fix release

• Revert default TOO_API submission to POST

swifttools 2.4.7 / swift_too 1.2.15

June 27th, 2022: Bug fix release

• Fix issue where quiet option wasn't available in Swift_Data and only worked in Jupyter Notebooks.

swifttools 2.4.6 / swift_too 1.2.14

June 24th, 2022: Bug fix and new feature release

• Fix issue in Swift_Data where fetch argument was not working.
• Add match argument to Swift_Data which allows user to filter on filenames using unix-style filename pattern matches. Multiple matches can be passed as a list, and files matching any of the matches will be downloaded.

swifttools 2.4.5 / swift_too 1.2.13

June 16th, 2022: Bug fix release

• Fix issue with failing IPV6 access to API

swifttools 2.4.4 / swift_too 1.2.12

May 2nd, 2022: Bug fix release.

• Minor bug fix.

swifttools 2.4.3 / swift_too 1.2.11

May 2nd, 2022: Bug fix release.

• Fixed crash related to keyring module on macOS, where module was called non-interactively or over an ssh login.
• Other minor code cleanups.

swifttools 2.4.2 / swift_too 1.2.10

April 1st, 2022: Added Swift_SAA method for calculating times when Swift is inside the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA). Bug fix.

• Swift_SAA AKA SAA class added for calculating SAA passage times for the Spacecraft definition of SAA (default) or an estimate of the Burst Alert Telescope SAA passage times.
• Fix issue where running clock_correct multiple times could cause issues with times.

swifttools 2.4.1 / swift_too 1.2.9

March 29th, 2022: Bug fix release

• Bug where begin and end properties of GUANO entries were not being set.

swifttools 2.4 / swift_too 1.2.8

March 28th, 2022: Added clock correction through both Swift_Clock class and universal clock_correct() method.

• Add new class Swift_Clock that for a time in either Swift Time, UTC Time or Mission Elapsed Time (MET), will return an object containing all three, along with the Universal Time Correction Factor (UTCF) that is used to correct Swift Time to UTC. The UTCF corrects for both Swift's clock drift and for any leap seconds.
• Added clock_correct() method to classes that return dates. Using this you can add UTCF to any returned time, and thereofer MET, UTC and Swift Time using the met, utc and swift attributes.
• All times are now defined as swiftdatetime which is an extended version of datetime that is either based on Swift Time or UTC Time. swiftdatetime act like datetimes, except that you can now obtain MET, UTC, UTCF or Swift Time using the met, utc, utc or swift attributes. In additionthe frommet classmethod allows you to construct a swiftdatetime from an MET. isutc parameter defines if the basis of the swiftdatetime is UT time or Swift Time. Standard datetime arithmetic can be performed, however UTCF is not propogated.
• GUANO query results are now clock corrected by default, to avoid confusion.

swifttools 2.3.1 / swift_too 1.2.7

February 7th, 2022: swift_too module updated to 1.2.7 with the following updates / fixes:

• Add option to Swift_Data to download from the Space Science Data Center in Italy. Set itsdc = True to download from Italian site, uksdc = True from the UK site. Default is to download from the HEASARC (US site).
• Bug fix in Swift_GUANO that could crash.

swifttools 2.3 / swift_too 1.2.6

February 3rd , 2022: swift_too module updated to 1.2.5. Add new classes designed to make access to Swift SDC data easier, provide an API for accessing GUANO and universal name resolution. Here are the details of the upgrade

• New class: Swift_GUANO. This class and it's support classes allow for querying data generated by the Gamma-Ray Urgent Archiver for Novel Opportunities (GUANO).
• New class: Swift_Data. This class makes downloading of Swift data from the USA and UK Swift Data Centers easy.
• New class: Swift_Resolve. For a give source name, this returns the coordinates as resolved by various name resolvers.
• Automatic name resolution. Using the Swift_Resolve class, passing name parameter to classes that take coordinates (including Swift_TOO) will now automatically resolve the name to ra, dec and skycoord (if astropy is installed).
• Shortcut names for classes. Now instead of using class names like Swift_ObsQuery you can omit the Swift_ and use the more simple ObsQuery.
• Better docstrings for all classes.
• Fix for crash when shared_secret is None, that can occur when username != 'anonymous'.
• Update how validation works for queries that don't use arguments.
• Various minor bug fixes and code updates.

swifttools 2.2.2 / swift_too 1.2.4

January 24th, 2022: Bug fix release.

• Debug code was left in that was not compatible with earlier versions of python (e.g. 3.6). This has been removed.

swifttools 2.2 / swift_too 1.2.3

December 17th, 2021: swifttools 2.2. Updates made in response to feedback from original release, and various quality of life improvements. Also new products can be fetched from the TOO API, details below.

• keyring support. If you have keyring installed and it works on your system, your shared_secret will be saved to it when you first pass it as an argument. On subsequent uses, you can give just your username.
• SkyCoord support. astropy SkyCoord objects can be returned instead of RA and Dec from any Class now, if astropy is installed. Note astropy will not be installed as a dependency of swifttools.
• Anonymous login by default: The default username for requests (except TOO requests) is now anonymous, meaning that requests can now be made without passing username and shared_secret at all.
• Swift_TOO_Requests support. This new request allows for the querying of approved Swift TOO requests sent to Swift by yourself and others. The approved XRT/BAT/UVOT modes and exposure time are reported. You can also choose to retrieve detailed information from the TOO Request, including justification texts. However, this detailed information is only available for TOOs you submitted.
• Swift_Calendar support. In this version you may retrieve calendar information for any TOO. These are automatically attached to entries in a Swift_TOO_Requests entry. The Calendar shows all planned observations for a TOO, along with an estimate of how much time was actually observed during the calendar window. Note that this is different from the Swift Plan, insofar as the Swift Calendar lists requested observations and can go much farther into the future. However, due to Swift's oversubscription, and other issues, even if an object is in the Calendar, that is not guarantee that Swift will observe it on that day, only that it is in the queue to be observed.
• ra_point and dec_point renamed to ra_object and dec_object. These attributes give the RA/Dec of the object that was the intended target of an observation. We note that the original choice of using ''point'' to indicate this is not consistent with other missions where ''point'' is used to indicate where the telescope pointed. For now, these new variables are simply aliases of ra_point and dec_point. These will be deprecated upon the release of the next API version (1.3), but not necessarily the next release of swifttools. API version will only be updated if compatibility of the API format needs to be broken, and every effort will be made to make API changes transparent to swifttools module users.