Testing Your Model

Before publishing, you can validate that your model container correctly handles its inputs and produces output. The pd4castr CLI provides two commands for local testing: pd4castr fetch to pull live data from configured data sources, and pd4castr test to build and run your container locally.

Fetching test data

The pd4castr fetch command pulls live data from your configured data fetchers into the local test_input/ directory. Only inputs that have a fetcher block are fetched — static inputs are skipped automatically.

For AEMO MMS fetchers, the CLI reads your fetch query SQL file, sends it to the pd4castr API, and writes the result as <key>.<targetFileFormat> in the input directory.

You must be authenticated before running this command. Run pd4castr login first if you haven’t already.

pd4castr fetch

Fetch command flags

FlagDefaultDescription
-i, --input-dirtest_inputDirectory to write fetched data.
-c, --config.pd4castrrc.jsonPath to the config file.

Local testing

The pd4castr test command validates that your model Docker container correctly fetches its inputs and uploads its output. It simulates the platform’s IO contract locally so you can catch issues before publishing.

pd4castr test

What the test command does

The test command runs through these steps:

  1. Validates your .pd4castrrc.json configuration against the schema.
  2. Checks that all expected input files exist in the input directory.
  3. Builds the Docker image with docker build --platform=linux/amd64 -t <image> .
  4. Starts a local web server to serve input files and capture output.
  5. Runs the container with INPUT_<KEY>_URL and OUTPUT_URL environment variables pointing to the local server.
  6. Reports pass or fail for each input fetch and the output upload.
  7. On success, saves the captured output to the test_output/ directory.

Test command flags

FlagDefaultDescription
-i, --input-dirtest_inputDirectory containing test input files.
-p, --port9800Port for the local IO testing web server.
-c, --config.pd4castrrc.jsonPath to the config file.

Model container IO contract

Your model container must fulfil a specific IO contract for the test (and production runs) to pass.

The container must:

  • Fetch each input from its INPUT_<KEY>_URL environment variable using an HTTP GET request.
  • Upload the output to the OUTPUT_URL environment variable using an HTTP PUT request.

The test passes only if all inputs are fetched and the output is uploaded. If any input is missed or the output isn’t uploaded, the test fails.

During local testing, input URLs follow this pattern:

http://host.docker.internal:<port>/input/<key>.<format>

For example, an input with key dispatch_price and format json on the default port is served at:

http://host.docker.internal:9800/input/dispatch_price.json

WSL support

If you’re running Docker on Windows via WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), the container connects via the WSL machine’s eth0 IP address instead of host.docker.internal.

To override the network interface, set the PD4CASTR_WSL_NETWORK_INTERFACE environment variable:

export PD4CASTR_WSL_NETWORK_INTERFACE=eth1
pd4castr test

Typical workflow

Here’s the recommended sequence of commands when developing and testing your model:

pd4castr fetch          # Pull latest data from configured fetchers
pd4castr test           # Build and validate locally
# Iterate on model code...
pd4castr test           # Re-test after changes
pd4castr publish        # Ship it when the tests pass

Next steps

  • See Model inputs for details on configuring fetchers and static inputs.
  • When your tests pass, move on to Publishing to ship your model.