serialization_config.yaml

Controls which fields are written to the HDF5 world-state file. Several fields are always written regardless of this config (see below). Everything else is opt-in.

Always written — population: id, age, sex, geographical_unit
Always written — venues: id, name, type, geographical_unit, parent/child relationships
Always written — subsets: venue_id, subset_index, subset_name, member list

Topic: Serialisation
Path: configs/2021/serialization_config.yaml

---

Keys

Key	Description
population	Additional person.properties keys to include
geography	Coordinate export and additional geographical_unit.properties keys
venues	Global venue flags and per-type property lists
subsets	Additional subset properties (rarely needed)
relationships	Flags for activity map and hierarchy exports
output	HDF5 compression and metadata settings

---

population

population:
  properties:
    - ethnicity
    - comorbidities
    - friendships
    - sexual_orientation
    - relationship_status

A list of keys from person.properties to include in the export. Any property assigned by an attribute YAML or social network builder may be listed here. Properties whose values are dicts or lists are serialised as JSON strings. Omitting a property from this list does not delete it from the world at runtime — it simply is not written to disk.

---

geography

geography:
  include_coordinates: true
  properties: []

include_coordinates — when true, writes latitude and longitude for each geographical unit. properties lists any additional keys from geographical_unit.properties to include; typically empty.

---

venues

venues:
  global:
    include_coordinates: true
    include_is_residence: true
  types:
    school:
      properties:
        - Gender
    company:
      properties:
        - work_sector
    classroom:
      properties:
        - capacity

global sets flags applied to all venue types: include_coordinates writes latitude/longitude where available; include_is_residence writes the is_residence flag.

types maps venue type names (matching keys in venues_config.yaml) to lists of CSV column names or venue properties to include. Any column loaded from the venue CSV may be listed. Child venue types (e.g. classroom, office) may also have entries here.

---

subsets

subsets:
  properties: []

Additional properties to write for each venue subset. Core attributes (venue reference, subset index, subset name, member list) are always written. This list is almost always empty.

---

relationships

relationships:
  include_activity_map: true
  include_venue_hierarchy: true
  include_geography_hierarchy: true

include_activity_map — writes each person's activity_map entries (person → venue links for each activity key). include_venue_hierarchy — writes parent → child venue links. include_geography_hierarchy — writes parent → child geography links. All three default to true; set false to reduce output size.

---

output

output:
  compression: "gzip"
  compression_level: 4
  include_metadata: true
  metadata:
    - random_seed
    - creation_timestamp
    - config_files_used
    - num_people
    - num_venues
    - num_geo_units

compression names the HDF5 compression codec; "gzip" is the standard choice. Omit for no compression. compression_level ranges from 0 (no compression) to 9 (maximum); 4 is a reasonable default balancing size and speed.

include_metadata — when true, writes a metadata group to the HDF5 file. metadata lists which fields to include; the available fields are random_seed, creation_timestamp, config_files_used, num_people, num_venues, and num_geo_units.