GenetIC is a code to generate initial conditions for cosmological simulations, especially for zoom simulations of galaxies. It provides support for 'genetic modifications' as described by e.g. Roth et al 2015, Rey & Pontzen 2018. It also supports 'splicing' as described by Cadiou et al 2021.

• The main code is written in C++ and can be found (with build instructions and a test suite) in the subfolder genetIC.
• The code is also available as docker image apontzen/genetic (see the user manual for further information)
• A set of python tools for development and testing is provided in tools.
• If you wish to use the code for science, we recommend adopting a particular (numbered) version. The most recent release can be downloaded at https://github.com/pynbody/genetIC/releases/latest
• Documentation can be found in the form of a PDF user manual, also at https://github.com/pynbody/genetIC/releases/latest
• The technical underpinnings of the code are described in a release paper at https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.01841

Legally, genetIC is released under the GNU public license v3; see LICENSE.md. However, for scientific integrity, if you use genetIC in any stage of preparing a publication, you must at a minimum cite the code release paper. Currently the citation should be along the lines of:

Stopyra et al, 2020, Submitted to ApJS. http://arxiv.org/abs/2006.01841

We would recommend additionally citing the specific version of the code you used, using an appropriate Zenodo DOI citation, which can be found here. There is a versions panel which lists DOIs for each release.

If you receive assistance from any of the genetIC authors, we also ask that you consider offering an acknowledgement or, in cases where the assistance is material to the development of a project, coauthorship to those who are helping you.