Invitation to participate into a "GMT Advisory Group" meeting

Announcements
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Here is the agenda and notes from yesterday’s GMT Advisory Group meeting:

GMT Advisory Meeting Agenda

April 16, 2026

  1. Update on transfer of GMT Forum and Remote Datasets to EarthScope/AWS infrastructure

    1. The GMT have been copied to an AWS S3 bucket which is configured with Cloudfront as an https server accessible here: https://d3ei3ebu1iflov.cloudfront.net/gmt-data

      1. How can this data be updated (Federico)? Can the repository https://github.com/GenericMappingTools/gmtserver-admin be used?

      2. There is the SWOT gravity data (https://topex.ucsd.edu/pub/global_grav_1min_SWOT/). Should we replace the old gravity data (https://www.generic-mapping-tools.org/remote-datasets/earth-faa.html) or add a new dataset?

        1. (Joachim) We should review the organization of the files to make sure that they are consistent to the old FTP holdings such that GMT can find what it’s looking for.

        2. (Solar) Been making an effort to do just that. The relative paths are the same.

    2. The gmt releases that are available through the GMT software mirrors are also available from the same website along with the datasets: https://d3ei3ebu1iflov.cloudfront.net/gmt/

      1. Do we want to continue supporting the legacy mirrors?

        1. (Joaquim) We don’t use that mode for many years since GitHub has become the base of development. Quietly archiving a copy is fine, but not something we advertise.

        2. (Solar) noticed that latest 6.6 release is not copied there, so a pretty good clue that this is not needed.

        3. (Christian) What of pushing a copy to Zenodo for another backup? GitHub can be set up to submit automatically.

        4. (Joachim) We have had recent 6.x releases going to Zenodo already.

        5. (Frederico) This was copied manually for v6.6 to Zenodo.

    3. We need to decide what to call the earthscope hosted gmt server.
      Maybe something like gmt-data.earthscope.org? Or something related to its geographic location (F)?

      1. See Joachim’s note on holding the 6.7 release below…

      2. There is an issue regarding the mirrors finding the default server.

    4. EarthScope has subscribed to a Discourse Business plan to support the GMT Forum.

      1. Need to work through the process of migrating the forum to from gmtserver to the Discourse hosted service

  2. Garrett is working on a no-cost extension for the supplemental funding to allow Earthscope Engagement to host a PyGMT workshop.

  3. How does the plan to create a new release this month look?

    1. I (Federico) would like to include the perspective text feature (https://github.com/GenericMappingTools/gmt/issues/8907). I might need some help.

  4. Ideas for attracting and supporting contributors

    1. Inclusion of Asian community

      1. May meeting being schedule to support Asian participants

    2. Somehow supporting AI access to assist contributors?

    3. Documentation for GMT: In general, it’s pretty good, but it can be hard to use. AI can help, but the core docs could use some cleanup.

    4. Expanding Advisory group?

      1. Seeking broader ideas and concerns for inspiration

      2. Avoid being a ‘closed shop’

      3. How big is too big for effective management

    5. (Christian) Come up with Guidelines for GMT Innovation, how to get support.

      1. Come up with a generic roadmap for GMT.

      2. GEBCO Cookbook for the hydrographic community: https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/socd/lsa/GEBCO_Cookbook/documents/CookBook_20191031.pdf – a possible source of funding to keep their doc up to date and supporting GMT.

  5. Other ideas?

    1. Could EarthScope take on managing GMT’s social media (Federico)?

      1. Instagram currently. – advertise more here - contact Federico.

      2. EarthScope has other Social Media contacts.

    2. Claude ‘group signature’ for the GMT community? (Joachim)

      1. Weekly credit. 5 hour wait times.

      2. https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11049762-choosing-a-claude-plan

      3. https://support.claude.com/en/articles/9266767-what-is-the-team-plan

      4. Let’s raise this at the next meeting. Who to include. EarthScope can bill this to Other line item in Supplemental.

(Joachim) Regarding the future 6.7 version, I think it better hold off till gmt-data.earthscope.org is added, and made the default site instead of oceania, inside the GMT code.

List of participants

  • Christian Ferreira

  • Federico Esteban

  • Joaquim Luis

  • Yvonne Fröhlich

  • Garrett Apuzen-Ito

  • Rob Casey

  • Solar Smith

  • Remko Scharroo

  • David Caress

ACTION ITEMS:

  1. Look into regularizing the process of posting minor releases of GMT to Zenodo.

  2. Advertise the GMT Datasets S3 browser site to the GMT Forum.

  3. Work out the structure of GMT associated domains within the earthscope.org umbrella (we’ll talk to Dave Mencin)

  4. Reach out to the GMT community this year about level of interest in attending a GMT Summit at EGU in 2027.

  5. Follow up with Engagement regarding social media outreach for GMT.

  6. This group come up with AI LLM brands that they want evaluated for GMT team development.

Dataset versioning
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And this is the Summary generated by Claude from the zoom transcript:

Meeting Summary generated by Claude from VTT file

This was a GMT Advisory Group meeting hosted by Solar Smith, covering infrastructure migration, upcoming releases, AI tooling, and community engagement.

GMT Infrastructure Migration

Solar Smith demonstrated progress on migrating GMT web services from the University of Hawaii to EarthScope Consortium infrastructure. The new S3-based data server with browsable directory listings is working and functionally equivalent to the existing mirrors. Joaquim emphasized the importance of exactly replicating the existing directory structure since GMT code relies on specific subdirectory organization. Solar confirmed this has been validated by pointing the GMT_DATA_SERVER environment variable at the new server successfully.

Forum Migration

Solar reported progress on migrating the GMT Community Forum to a Discourse-hosted service under EarthScope. A backup created by Ross has been uploaded to the new EarthScope Discourse instance, with a prototype expected to be available for community review within a few business days. The plan is to announce it in the Site Feedback category of the current forum.

GMT 6.7 Release Timing

Joaquim recommended holding the 6.7 release until the AWS data server migration is complete, so the new server can be set as the default data server in the release. Currently the default points to Oceania (Hawaii), and changing it requires a code update. There is an open GitHub issue related to this. Joaquim also noted that a previously identified Windows crash bug appears to be specific to his laptop configuration and not a blocker.

AI Tooling for Developers

The group discussed providing a group AI subscription to GMT developers to assist with coding and bug fixing. Joaquim reported fixing approximately 10 bugs in a week using Claude Pro, but noted credit limitations are a constraint. The group discussed options including Claude Pro individual subscriptions, Claude Team plan (~$20/user/month), and briefly considered GitHub Copilot and OpenAI Codex. Rob noted there is $7K in unspent “other costs” budget that could potentially cover subscriptions. The decision was deferred to the next meeting to allow broader developer input, including PyGMT contributors.

Social Media

Federico noted GMT currently has an Instagram account and a YouTube channel. The former Twitter/X account was dropped after the ownership change. Rob offered to engage EarthScope’s engagement team to amplify GMT visibility through EarthScope’s LinkedIn and other social media channels. Federico was identified as the current Instagram account manager.

GMT Workshop / Community Event

Discussion of a no-cost extension on Paul Wessel’s grant, potentially extended to September 2028. EarthScope’s Michael Huenthal expressed interest in organizing future PyGMT technical courses. Joaquim and Yvonne Fröhlich expressed conditional interest in participating. Rob suggested a future GMT Summit at EGU in 2027 as a longer-term community building goal.

MB System / GEBCO Cookbook (Christian)

Christian suggested GMT publish a roadmap to help community contributors align their efforts. He also noted the GEBCO cookbook (dating from 2019) heavily features GMT and suggested the Nippon Foundation, which has funded similar tutorials, might be approached for funding to update it.

Action Items

Owner

Action

Solar Smith

Post prototype forum announcement in GMT forum Site Feedback category

Solar Smith

Continue DNS and domain planning for migrating forum.generic-mapping-tools.org

Solar Smith

Work with EarthScope to establish naming convention under earthscope.org domain

Solar Smith

Investigate GitHub Copilot Workspace for repository-level AI support

Rob Casey

Engage EarthScope engagement team to promote GMT on EarthScope social media channels

Rob Casey

Explore using $7K “other costs” budget line for group AI subscription

Rob Casey

Connect Michael Huenthal with Yvonne Fröhlich regarding PyGMT workshop

Garrett Apuzen-Ito

Finalize no-cost extension processing and confirm budget flexibility for AI subscriptions

Joaquim

Share open GitHub issue related to default data server naming/mirror configuration

Joaquim

Follow up with Dongdong and PyGMT team about AI tooling adoption

All developers

Come to next meeting with AI tool preferences for group evaluation

Christian

Share GEBCO cookbook link with the group

Group

Next meeting: May 12th

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Dataset versioning

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This is a summary of the Advisory Group meeting from 2026-05-13T01:30Z

GMT Advisory Meeting Summary

Participants: Rob Casey, Garrett Apuzen-Ito, Solar Smith, Xiaohua Xu, Dongdong Tian, Joaquim Luis, Federico Esteban

1. GMT Forum Transfer to Discourse Hosted

Solar reported that EarthScope has moved from a trial to an active subscription on the Discourse Business plan. The prototype forum at gmt.discourse.group is up and running. The next step is DNS cutover — pointing forum.generic-mapping-tools.org away from the GMT server hardware in Hawaii to the Discourse-hosted site.

Outreach to Max Jones (who manages GMT’s DNS/domain registration) has been initiated but follow-up is needed. Max expressed some concern about whether there was general buy-in from the core developer community. Solar plans to send a follow-up email CC’ing core developers to demonstrate broader support. Rob confirmed Max’s affiliation with Development Seed and suggested he may simply be busy.

Action item: Solar to send follow-up email to Max Jones, CC’ing core developers, to build consensus and move forward on DNS transfer.

2. Remote Datasets / S3 Bucket Infrastructure

Solar reported progress moving the GMT data server prototype from the EarthScope Dev AWS account to the Production account. A key infrastructure challenge has emerged around mirror support:

rsync problem: Existing GMT data mirrors use rsync to stay synchronized with the master server. Supporting rsync in EarthScope’s AWS environment would require running a dedicated EC2 instance as an rsync daemon — which is problematic from an organizational/cost perspective.

Mirror discussion:

  • Joaquim expressed reluctance to rely entirely on Amazon for content delivery, preferring independent mirrors for resilience. He noted his own Portuguese mirror has fallen out of date partly due to storage constraints and rsync friction.

  • Solar noted that AWS CloudFront provides global presence, redundancy, and high availability — potentially reducing the need for independent mirrors — but acknowledged AWS outages do happen.

  • Dongdong and Xiaohua emphasized that local mirrors are genuinely useful, particularly for large datasets like the Copernicus Global DEM used in InSAR processing.

  • The group noted that host/pathname selection for mirror servers is currently a manual process in GMT with no automatic fallback.

Alternatives to rsync discussed:

  • rclone — similar to rsync, natively supports S3 sync, increasingly common in scientific computing though requires installation

  • aws s3 sync — simple and direct and can be configured for use without AWS credentials

  • No consensus reached; further discussion needed with GMT core developers

  • Solar will work to set up to test the alternatives

New dataset workflow questions raised:

  • How are updates to existing datasets handled?

  • How would a completely new dataset be added to the server?

  • Suggestion to explore a “dropbox-style” workflow for ingesting new data contributions

Domain structure: Discussion of using a path under data.earthscope.org for GMT data products, e.g. data.earthscope.org/gmt/datasets/. Solar will work with Mladen on supporting the GMT S3 bucket infrastructure.

3. Zenodo / GMT Releases

  • Recent GMT 6.x releases have been going to Zenodo already

  • Federico noted the v6.6 upload to Zenodo was done manually

  • Discussion of automating this via GitHub Actions or a CI/CD pipeline

  • No firm decision made; worth establishing a routine automated path

4. NSF Supplemental Funding Extension

  • Garrett confirmed the supplement has been extended with NSF approval

  • Rob will get more details and update EarthScope’s books

  • Garrett will set up a 1-year extension process

  • Budget category changes to be reviewed by Garrett

5. Attracting and Supporting Contributors

Social media:

  • Federico suggested EarthScope could take on managing GMT’s social media presence

  • Instagram is currently used but underutilized — more promotion recommended

  • EarthScope has broader social media contacts that could amplify GMT’s reach

  • Follow-up with EarthScope Engagement team recommended

AI assistance for contributors:

  • Group discussed funding AI access to assist GMT contributors and developers

  • Claude was identified as the leading AI assistant brand, noted as a standout tool by Joaquim

  • Claude is accessible through multiple routes including GitHub Copilot

  • Questions raised about how to vet supported developers for AI access funding

  • Xiaohua emphasized thinking about AI agents — specifically training an agent on GMT so it can help users build outputs and workflows. Described fine-tuning existing models to be GMT-specific and goal-oriented. The group agreed this is worth exploring with specific use cases to drive the approach. But noted this does still have the need of potentially significant funding to support.

  • General consensus that adding new capabilities using LLMs is viable, but a major refactor of the codebase using an LLM would be too risky

  • Joaquim noted AI agents could be particularly valuable for documentation and examples

6. Next Meeting

The group agreed to meet again at the APAC friendly time in approximately 2 months. Joaquim requested that next time there be a more detailed demonstration of the AI agent work being done by Xiaohua’s group.

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How much storage capacity is this about?

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All of the remote datasets together use about 80 GB of space.