GUIDEBOOK · GLOSSARY

CEA Variable & File Glossary

CEA Variable & File Glossary

A reference of the 179 input, intermediate, and output files used by the City Energy Analyst, grouped by feature. Each entry lists the file path, the script that produces it, the scripts that consume it, and the full column schema with type, unit, and valid values.

Generated from cea/schemas.yml by scripts/generate_tutorial_glossary.py. Re-run after modifying the schema to refresh.

Categories

Schema Hygiene

⚠️ 35 stale schema entries detected — see Stale Schema Entries for the cleanup punch list. These are entries in cea/schemas.yml with no matching InputLocator method; they appear in the per-category pages with a ⚠️ marker.

Reading a Glossary Entry

Each file has a heading with its locator method (the function on InputLocator that returns its path), followed by:

• Path — relative to the scenario folder
• File type — csv, shp, dbf, xlsx, epw, tif, etc.
• Created by — the script that writes the file (empty for user inputs)
• Used by — scripts that read the file downstream
• A column table with Variable, Description, Type, Unit, and Values

The Values column auto-summarises valid ranges: {min...max} for numeric, {true, false} for boolean, {a, b, c} for choice, alphanumeric for free-form strings.

How to Regenerate

pixi run python scripts/generate_tutorial_glossary.py

Run this whenever cea/schemas.yml changes. The generator is also safe to wire into CI via the same command.

Source: view raw on GitHub ↗